


Bide

by lurkdusoleil



Series: Bide [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Horror, M/M, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:49:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkdusoleil/pseuds/lurkdusoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine are souls meant to meet again and again. But sometimes they don’t quite catch each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings (for whole fic): supernatural elements, including ghosts, hauntings, possible possessions; mentions of ill practices of early 20th century asylums; homophobia; murder/character death (message for details if it scares you); more may be added as the story progresses
> 
> Elmhurt Asylum is not real—I made it up. I made everything up, I didn’t do a stitch of research. I just pulled in knowledge from local legends and television specials.
> 
> The story is not, at heart, a horror story. It’s a romance. But if ghosts scare you, you might not want to take part. If anyone wants to know more, message me. Otherwise, I won’t spoil (even if you could probably guess) other than to say there’s a happy ending. Always.

Blaine’s starting to think he’s going to regret letting Tina talk him into this outing with her college buddies as he stares through a chain link fence with several signs warning him not to trespass, the sun starting to set on what looks like an old brick schoolhouse.

“Elmhurst Asylum,” Lane says with relish. A pretty girl with black braids and a pretty smile, she’d been the one to tell him all the horror stories on their way up, with brief interludes from the car’s other passenger--a scrawny boy in loose clothes who’d introduced himself as Ian.

“So do we just...go in?” Blaine asks.

“With the equipment,” Tina corroborates. “Would you mind using those biceps and carrying in the generator? We need it to run the equipment at home base. Just a bunch of computer stuff and charging stations for the other crap we’ll carry around,” she adds, turning to Blaine. “Ian will sit there with a bunch of lights on and keep things running while the rest of us explore.”

“I lose control of my bladder if I’m in the dark for too long,” Ian confirms without shame, shrugging.

“All right, enough chitter chatter,” Lane says with her startling white grin. “Let’s get this working before the sun goes down.”

\--

That’s pretty much the story of how Blaine ends up holding a flashlight and a video camera in utter darkness, stumbling his way down a ramshackle hallway, dodging falling bricks, old chunks of plaster, and fallen wooden beams.

“There’s supposed to be a lot of activity in the lower rooms,” Tina says, some complicated audio recording equipment around her neck. “That’s where they kept the worst patients--ones they couldn’t control, or that they abused. We’re in the upper level now, and they got their funding by keeping it pretty, according to the stories.”

“Upstairs was all offices and shit for the doctors and nurses,” Lane expands. She also has a flashlight, and an EMF reader, which makes weird noises once in a while, but otherwise doesn’t seem to do much. “On the main level here we’ve got the nice rooms, the quiet patients got to stay up here. There’s a rec room and a cafeteria up here too. Downstairs are the kitchens, the operating rooms, all the boilers and water tanks and stuff, and then the cages. Those are where the bad patients went.”

“What made a patient bad?” Blaine asks. He’d never gotten into the ghost hunting fad when it had been on TV or in the movies.

“Depended,” Lane says. “Some of them were just crazy--yelling at the voices in their head and stuff. Some were actually just sick with TB and they got tossed down to die. Some of ‘em were uncooperative with the treatment they would’ve gotten on the upper level, so instead they were chained up and sometimes even experimented on. Lots of ‘em got lobotomies, drug cocktails, all kinds of awful stuff. Elmhurst had a reputation. That’s why it got shut down, when somebody decided human rights should come into it back in the sixties.”

They’d bypassed all the rooms in the hallway, apparently just bedrooms for the “good” patients. When they reached the end of the hall, though, Lane pulled out her phone and checked something.

“All right, rec room should be through here, and then we can find the stairs down to the lower level through what was supposed to be a closet.” She slips the phone back to her pocket and slips the flashlight under her arm before reaching out for the door handle. “Keep an eye out. It should be on the right wall.”

She opens the door and releases a cloud of questionable dust. Blaine covers his mouth with his arm--if he’d gone without the damn bowtie, he’d’ve been able to hide in his shirt like the girls, but there’s no way he’s taking it off and risking its loss. And besides, it’s making him feel a little safer--the further they get into the building, the more unsteady he feels, like his nerves are rising to attention, perking up and casting out for signals. It gives him chills, and the moment they step into the rec room and start heading for the right wall, his hindbrain kicks in and tells him he’s being watched.

“Um…”

“You feel it?” Lane asks, looking over at him excitedly. “Isn’t it nuts?”

“What exactly am I supposed to be feeling?” Blaine asks.

“What you’re feeling, Bling Bling, is _ghosts_ ,” Tina giggles. She’s mocking him, but he’s at least grateful for the nickname--if she’s not worried, he doesn’t have to be. Simple as that.

“Here we go,” Lane says, jogging ahead and reaching for a plain grey door. It’s stuck, but she yanks it free despite Blaine’s nerves on the matter--he’s not sure when anything in this place could just fall down and kill them. Nothing looks remotely stable.

“There’s stairs in here,” Lane says. “Come on--I’ll go first with the EMF detector--Blaine, you wanna come behind me with the camera? Tina, pull up rear, that thing picks up sound from fifty feet away.”

They line up, and Lane leads the way down the narrow, rickety steps into the yawning darkness. Blaine shivers and feels an overwhelming need to turn around and run away and maybe hide underneath some blankets in a very well lit room as far from this place as possible.

“Oh my god, this is so creepy,” Tina whispers. Lane sushes her.

“Looks like this is the boiler room, and I think the kitchens are that way.” She points her flashlight to a set of double doors behind the staircase before turning back. There’s a hallway just to the right of the stairs. “And those would be the cages.”

Blaine understands immediately why they have that name. The rooms are just little cells, wooden walls separating them from each other, barred doors swinging in from the hall. They’re bare but for metal cots, most of them without mattresses. In one or two, he spots a bucket, but that’s it--no evidence of running water, toilets, anything but the metal cots. The walls are scored and chipped at, and he thinks he sees some graffiti in a few, but Lane just leads them on, trying to find activity with her reader.

“Come on, damnit,” Lane whispers. “There’s gotta be something. You wanna set up in a room, or in the hall? See if anything comes to us if we call?”

“Works for me,” Tina says breathlessly, and Blaine turns to see her shivering. He immediately puts an arm around her--the camera’s pointing off at nothing, probably, but Tina’s more important than some blurry night visioned footage of what’s probably nothing but dust, flares from the flashlights, and a bad feeling in the air.

“You okay?” he asks quietly. She nods, rubbing her arms.

“Just chilly,” she says. The temperature is much colder down here, but there aren’t any windows for sunlight to come in even in the day--Blaine’s not surprised it stays cold down here. It’s like a freezer.

“Come here, Tina,” Lane says. “Just--stand right there, and try to talk to the spirits. I’ll stay here with the light, but if I point it away, don’t worry, okay? Blaine, go down the hall a bit, get some footage. You think you’d be okay leaving your flashlight? You got the night vision, right?”

He has a bad feeling about it, but telling himself that nothing’s wrong works like it always has--denial might be his best friend. He hands over the flashlight and holds the camera up, looking through the little screen to try to find his way via the warped green images.

Tina starts talking behind him, but he tries not to listen--he’s not sure he wants to hear if anything responds, and he’s definitely sure he doesn’t want to hear Lane instructing her on how to summon spirits or something. This place creeps him out plenty, he doesn’t want anything to do with trying to make it creepier.

_\--aine._

Blaine turns around.

“What did you say?”

The girls turn to face him.

“Nothing?” Tina calls. “Did you hear something?”

Blaine shakes his head.

“No, I’m just--I’m just nervous, sorry. I’ll film from here, okay?”

He turns and brings the camera up--but there’s nothing on the screen but white.

“Damn--thing,” he curses quietly.

_Blaine._

He definitely heard his name that time. He looks up, expecting the girls to be giggling, pranking him, but they’re both absorbed in doing something with the recording equipment. He turns--he can’t see anything in what minimal light the flashlights give him when they swing that way, but he strains his ears. Maybe Ian’s having a go at them--

_Blaine. In here._

That definitely didn’t come from behind him or in front of him. It came from his left. He whips his head, and holds up the camera--the screen is working again, although it’s fuzzy, flickering. There’s a cell before him, the door completely off its hinge, the metal bed overturned. There are suspicious stains all over the room, scores on the walls. But he can’t see anything.

“H-hello?” he asks quietly.

_Blaine._

He jerks back, camera falling from his hand.

_Something just fucking touched him._

“Blaine, are you okay?”

He grabs the camera and _runs_ back to the girls, tripping on debris. He skids to a stop and shakes his hand--it feels cold and tingly, like he just dunked it in ice water.

“I--I don’t know,” he says. “Can we get out of here?”

“What’d you see?” Lane asks.

“Nothing,” he says. “I...I thought I heard a voice, and then--then my hand just got cold, I think--I just--”

“Where? What cell?”

Lane marches right down the hall, close to where he was standing. Tina holds Blaine’s hand, warming it in her own, and looks at him with concern.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “We can leave if you want. Lane’s a little nuts about this stuff, but if you’re really not okay--”

“It’s--it’s fine,” he says. “If something else happens I’m going to scream and run, though.”

Tina laughs.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“Was it here?” Lane asks.

It’s the cell Blaine was at. He nods, gesturing to it.

“Yeah, I think.”

“Well, what did you hear?”

He opens his mouth to tell the truth automatically, but he pauses. What the hell will happen if he says he heard his own name in a disembodied voice? Either they’ll think he’s crazy, or Lane will make him go in there and sit down with candles and a ouija board or something.

“Just--just said hi,” he blurts out.

Lane raises an eyebrow.

“It said hi?”

“Look, I don’t know,” Blaine says. “Maybe I was just--imagining things. I’m nervous, I’m probably making it all up in my head.”

“Lane, let’s go,” Tina says. “It’s freezing down here, your EMF detector isn’t giving any readings, and we’re freaking poor Blaine out. Ian’s probably bored out of his mind. We can come back tomorrow, check out the cafeteria or something.”

Lane sighs.

“All right. Maybe this place is a bust, though,” she says, leading the way out. “There’s never any solid proof--just circumstantial shit.”

“We can always head out to that church you were telling me about--”

Blaine follows after them closely, stuffing his hand in his pocket. No matter how nice it had been to hold Tina’s hand and get some warmth from it, the moment she’d released it, it had turned to ice again, like it was still behind held by whatever touched him.

 _Nothing touched you, Anderson,_ he tells himself. _You probably just caught a draft._

A draft. Totally underground. With no breeze or openings to the surface. A draft shaped exactly like fingers.

Yeah.


	2. Chapter 2

The girls are sharing one bed of the hotel room. Blaine’s alone in the other--Ian’s family lives close by, so he went home for the night. Blaine thankful--while the girls sleep peacefully, he tosses and turns in bed, his hand still tingling, his body coming down from too much adrenaline that hadn’t fully hit him til they’d packed up and left. He’d sat in the back seat of the tiny car and practiced breathing normally so no one could see him panic, but inside, he’d been screaming. He’s never experienced anything like that, and it still terrifies him.

What the hell could have made him hear his own name? Was something really down there?

Why would it speak to him? Why would it know him?

_Blaine._

He bolts up in bed, but he’s not _in_ bed anymore.

 _I’m dreaming,_ he thinks. _And I know I’m dreaming. Shouldn’t I wake up?_

“Blaine.”

He’s sitting in the cell again, in that awful asylum. But it’s not in ruins--it’s just dirty and desolate and terrible. The doors are all on their hinges, the bed is upright, and somebody’s sitting on the edge of it in the cell with the stains and the markings. He sees clearly, scratched deeply into the wall, _Fly._

“Blaine,” the figure says. “--back.”

“What?” Blaine asks.

“--back. I--you--power.”

It’s like the man--he thinks it’s a man, it _feels_ like a man--can’t really speak. The words come short and sharp, as though across a phone line that keeps cutting in and out.

“I can’t understand you,” Blaine says. “What about power?”

“Come--power. Then--fo--to you..see. Come back.”

The man reaches out a hand, stretching toward Blaine, his fingers just behind the bars. Without a thought, Blaine reaches his hand back--and when they brush, his whole body lights up, and he hears the words with his ears and his heart.

“ _Come back, Blaine. Bring power._ ”

“Blaine? Blaine, wake up.”

He gasps, and he’s back in the hotel room, sweating, heart racing. He’s tangled in his sheets, and Tina’s standing above him, frowning down at him.

“What?”

“Were you having a nightmare?” she whispers. It’s still dark in the room, but only just--the cold grey light of the moments just before dawn fill the room, and he breathes deep. He’s--he’s here, he’s not there anymore, there’s no one talking to him--

“Yeah, I think so.” He lays back down. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s okay,” Tina says, scooting into bed with him and cuddling up. “Come on, let’s get some more rest.”

When she wakes three hours later, he doesn’t even pretend to have slept. Instead, he turns down their invitation to go let Ian drive them around in his mom’s Charger and take them to some roller rink he keeps laughing about, and instead says he’ll be getting more sleep.

Once they’re gone, he takes the keys, makes sure the generator is in the trunk, and speeds off toward Elmhurst.

\--

Lugging the stupid generator through the asylum is generally easy until he hits the stairs to the lower level--then he needs to hold the flashlight as well, and it’s only through some creative knotting of a less precious bowtie that he manages to have light while he stumbles down the stairs with the generator in both hands.

He feels the same tingling in his nerves, the same vague paranoia as he heads into the hallway with the cages, dropping the generator outside the cage with the voice.

_\--aine._

“Hi,” Blaine says, feeling foolish and terrified all at once. “Um...hi.”

_\--aine...power…_

“Oh!” He shoves the generator into the doorway of the cage, and with more than a little trepidation, turns it on. It whirs to life, and when the charge shows that it’s at top performance, Blaine stands up. He swings the flashlight into the cell, and--

“Holy shit!”

He falls back, almost tripping back into the metal bars behind him. Standing in the cell, just behind the generator, is a man.

“Blaine,” he says, his voice and eyes distant, but fully focused on Blaine--like they’re looking _inside_ of him. “You came.”

“You--” Blaine swallows to keep from vomiting and potentially soiling his pants. “You--you called me here. You said my name.”

“Yes.”

“Wh--why? What do you want?”

Blaine hopes he doesn’t want to kill him or rip out his innards or possess him--

“You,” the man says, a soft smile on his face. And he’s--he’s really beautiful, even though his eyes are sunken and he’s clothed in rags and he’s obviously undernourished and not groomed very well. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asks, straightening up. There’s--warmth, all of a sudden, along with the ever-present chill. “Who are you?”

The ghost-- _it’s a fucking ghost, Blaine, you’re looking at a ghost,_ his brain tells him, despite every piece of him wanting to deny it or chalk it up to a prank--loses his smile,

“You don’t remember me,” the ghost says. “I don’t know why I thought you might. Well...my name...is Kurt. Can you tell me...how long has it been?”

“I don’t know,” Blaine says, breathing deeply. “I don’t know when--where you came from. But it’s...um, the year is twenty-fourteen.”

“Almost a hundred years,” Kurt sighs. “Of course you don’t remember me. You--you didn’t--”

Kurt turns away.

“Wait!”

Kurt faces Blaine again, eyes mournful.

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know if you’re the same man.”

“I--I don’t think so,” Blaine says. “I’m just--I’m just a guy.”

“You look just like him,” Kurt says, voice still flat, but face showing all the grief of the world. “And you have the same name. I thought you were him. You feel like him.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says again.

“No--don’t be sorry,” Kurt says. “I think--I think you are him. But I think you’ve forgotten. It’s been...so long…”

“Kurt--do you--” Blaine coughs, fidgeting. “Do you know...what you are?”

Kurt blinks, and then looks down at himself.

“That’s right,” he says. “I guess I forgot. I’ve been waiting a long time. It...it’s hard to remember sometimes. But you--you don’t know that anymore. You moved on.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t know if it matters,” Kurt goes on, as though Blaine hadn’t spoken. “I--I can feel you, Blaine. You’re the same man, inside. And I just--I just want to be near you again.”

“I’m--I’m scared, Kurt,” Blaine says. He feels this should be obvious. “You’re a ghost.”

“I know,” Kurt says. “But--but I’m still Kurt. Do you know what I mean?”

“No,” Blaine says, feeling like he’s going to be close to tears. He feels like he’s being washed over with sadness and grief and longing--is Kurt making him feel this? He’s already seeing things he never thought possible, he feels like he might faint from it, what’s one more thing he can’t explain--

“Would you let me show you?” Kurt asks. “I--this...this box has immense power. I’m drawing quite a lot from it and it still runs. I might...I might be able to show you.”

“Show me what?”

Kurt smiles again, white lips on a white face, white serenity finally sinking into his cold blue eyes.

“That I’ve been looking for you forever. That...that you’ve been looking for me, too.”

Blaine doesn’t know how to respond. But Kurt reaches up a hand, and without a doubt, Blaine raises his own in return.

“See?” Kurt says. “You do remember, if only a little.”

Their palms brush, and Kurt disappears. The flashlight falls to the ground--the generator groans and dies. And Blaine falls to the ground, darkness filling the hallway and his head alike.


	3. Chapter 3

When Blaine wakes, he’s back in the hotel room.

\--how in the hell-- 

“--must’ve really gotten to him--oh, hey Blaine!” 

Tina sits on the edge of the bed and brushes some hair out of his eyes. 

“Are you feeling any better?” she asks. She looks concerned. “I’m pretty sure you slept all day.” 

“Time s’it?” Blaine asks. His mouth is thick and slow, like after too many dry drinks. The sherry his parents used to pass around at parties. The vodka at that party, bought by someone who obviously didn’t understand that party drinks are supposed to be easy to swallow in large quantities. 

“It’s like...four?” Tina shrugs. “We just got back, and you were still passed out. We were gonna let you sleep, but--have you eaten today?” 

The aching emptiness in his stomach indicates otherwise, so he shakes his head. 

“No, I’m starving.” 

“Okay. Get dressed, we’ll meet you down at the car. We still have the Charger!” Tina whispers, like it’s scandalous. Blaine just smiles back until she and Lane leave him to his privacy. 

He swings out of bed and heads to the mirror. He doesn’t look any different--a little paler, maybe, and certainly tired. He’s in the pajamas he’d worn last night, and he finds his clothes folded neatly over his bag. He’s not dirty or injured or even aching from lugging the generator. 

Did he dream the whole thing? 

_No._

Kurt appears in the mirror--gently, as though sidling in from another plane, one minute there, and then over the next minute easily fading into sight. 

“Kurt.” 

Blaine’s whole body goes cold, and he stills, but Kurt smiles at him warmly. 

_I’m sorry._ His lips move, but he’s not sure if the voice is just in his head. It doesn’t seem to quite hit his ears--but there it is, clear, the understanding of the _how_ of it just out of his grasp. _I don’t mean to frighten you._

“How are you here?” Blaine demands. “Are you a--a hallucination, what--” 

_It’s...complicated,_ Kurt says. _But technically, yes. No one else can see me but you. But that doesn’t mean I’m not real._

“I think that’s actually exactly what it means,” Blaine mumbles. “Um. How did I get back here?” 

_I’m sorry, Blaine,_ Kurt says. _But leaving you unconscious in the asylum--it wasn’t safe. There are other spirits there that might’ve tried to harm you. So long in this...this purgatory...it drives even sane men mad._

“But...but you don’t seem--” 

_Ah, but I had something to hold onto,_ Kurt explains gently, coming around to face Blaine directly instead of just through the mirror. Blaine studies him closely--he looks the same, but a little… _livelier._ His eyes less sunken and more focused, his rags closer to actual clothing, his skin clear and clean. 

“You--you look--” 

_Different?_ Kurt finishes with a smirk. _Well, leaving that place--you can’t imagine the burden it lifts. I’m...free now, in a way I wasn’t before._

“Were you stuck there?” 

_Most spirits that don’t move on attach to the place they die,_ Kurt explains. _I...I did not know that before. Or I would’ve...I would’ve moved on._

Blaine shakes his head. There are too many questions-- 

_I can explain everything if you give me a chance,_ Kurt says, raising a hand gently as though he wants to touch Blaine. _Perhaps...perhaps sometime when you are alone. I think you wouldn’t want your friends to worry about you._

“No,” Blaine agrees. One question floats up through the morass, rises to his lips. “Kurt, if you were attached to the asylum, how did you leave? You’re--you’re attached to me, right?” 

_It’s not usual, but yes,_ Kurt says. _You allowed me to move on from that place._

Realization strikes. “Does that mean--did you--are you--Kurt, are you _possessing_ me?” 

Kurt hushes him gently. 

_I took control of your body and some of your memories to save your sanity, yes,_ he says. _But as soon as we arrived here, I retreated to...let’s call it an empty room in your mind. And I’ll stay here until I can...go elsewhere. You won’t even notice I’m here if you don’t want to, I promise. I won’t exert any influence over you. I just--want to stay near you._

“Is it because…? Kurt...do you--do you need my help...moving on? To the--the other side?” 

Kurt smiles. 

_I’m...I’m not sure what I’d like to do yet,_ Kurt says, a little sad. _I think we could talk about it after tonight. After...after you know why you were able to take me from my prison. But for now, dress and go with your friends. I’ll--I’ll keep silent, until you call me. At a more opportune time._

His hand lifts, and his fingertips trail gently against Blaine’s cheek. Instead of the cold he expects, it’s like gentle crackles of electricity on his skin. 

It fades with Kurt, though. And when he’s alone, he hurries to dress and leave the room--if he stops to think, if he gets lost in this, the girls will come looking for him, and he--he can’t explain this-- 

He doesn’t even know what this _is._ And most disconcerting of all--he doesn’t really mind not knowing. He has the questions, but they aren’t what cloud his mind. 

It’s Kurt. All he wants to do is call him back--see him, talk to him. 

He wants to talk to his hallucination. A hallucination that _admits_ to being a hallucination. That wants to show him things. That knows him. Figure out--everything about him. 

Blaine hardly knows what clothes he throws on before he’s darting out the door and down to the car. He can’t _deal_ with this right now, his friends are probably pissed off and wondering what the hell is wrong with him-- 

_Act normal, Blaine,_ he tells himself. _Just act like you did before a ghost possessed you. Oh god._

As he hits the bottom of the stairs, panic starting to rise, he thinks he hears a faint chuckle in his head that is not his own. And it makes him smile. 

_Oh, shut up,_ he thinks. 

Kurt does exactly what he asks. 


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine doesn’t have any time to be alone with Kurt until he gets back to the city Sunday evening. But ever since he and Kurt had faced each other in the hotel room, he’d felt...less alone. He could _feel_ Kurt in his head, like a memory he could access anytime, and it would always be different.

_Pay attention to your friends, Blaine,_ Kurt had told him once, a teasing chide accompanied by the faintest idea of a smirk. Blaine had smiled, and nobody had noticed. So he’d sat there, gently letting that part of his mind overwhelm him, getting lost in the little impressions of Kurt. Someone playful, someone certain, someone entirely in possession of who he is. 

Who he _was_. Maybe. Blaine has to keep reminding himself that he didn’t know Kurt before this weekend, and even now the only reason he knows him is because Kurt’s actually inside his head. Which frankly sounds insane. 

_I know insanity, Blaine,_ Kurt whispers. _I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. You’re not mad. You just don’t know the whole story yet. But you will_

When Blaine finally gets home and lets himself into his studio apartment, Kurt appears to him, and he looks-- _different._ He looks almost normal. Hair styled up and back, skin still pale but not as sickly. He’s dressed like something out of a movie--long, slender, cuffed linen pants, high-waisted and belted tightly around his slender middle. A starched white shirt settled over his broad chest and shoulders, the rounded collar pressed up, revealing the line of the emerald tie around his neck. He could’ve stepped off the Titanic, if Blaine is any judge--and, admittedly, he knows nothing of fashion that happened before he started dressing himself. 

“Kurt, you--” He breathes deeply, taking Kurt in. He was...he is _stunning_ , a fine gentleman dandy from a silent film, but those blue-green eyes, that porcelain skin, that chestnut hair in black and white would be a tragedy. 

Kurt smiles, a hint of mischief in it. “You don’t react any differently than you used to, Blaine. But thank you. For… _all_ the compliments.” 

Blaine blushes. 

“You can hear my thoughts, can’t you.” 

Kurt smiles wider, cat with cream. 

“I promise I won’t dig too deeply without your permission.” 

Blaine smiles and chuckles, but he finds himself hanging his head, overcome with confusion and a deep sense of melancholy. 

“Kurt, what’s happening?” he asks. “I mean...three days ago I was a boring college student, and now I’m… _attached_ to a ghost. It sounds like something out of a movie. What’s...what’s going on?” 

Kurt’s smile softens, saddens, and he reaches out to Blaine. 

“Let’s sit,” he suggests. “I’ll explain everything I can to you. But I have to be honest, Blaine, there’s a lot I could miss.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Kurt grabs Blaine’s hands--and it feels real, it feels _so real_ , Kurt could be a real man standing right in front of him and not just a trick of his mind-- 

“Don’t think like that, Blaine,” Kurt pleads. Blaine sighs, half-annoyed--he’d asked Kurt not to look-- “And I can’t help hearing some things. You’re just--so _open,_ Blaine. And it’s something I always loved about you. But please, keep an open mind about this--is there any reason that I’m not actually real?” 

“You mean aside from the fact that I’d be locked up if I ever said anything--” 

“Forget other people,” Kurt says. “Am I here to _you?_ Can you see me, touch me, hear me? If nobody else were ever involved, what would be the difference?” 

“You’re dead,” Blaine says, a crack in his voice. “I’m only seeing you being you’re in my head--” 

“You’d only be seeing me in your head if I were alive, too,” Kurt reasons. “What we experience is what makes something real to us. You’re real to me because I can experience you with all my senses--and just because my senses are in a different state of being doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Doesn’t mean _I_ don’t exist. Am I here to you, Blaine?” 

“Yes.” It’s barely a breath, barely a whisper, because Kurt is inches from him, pleading, demanding, and god, if Kurt told him to do something now he’d do it--anything, anything at all. He’d kneel, he’d rob a bank, he’d-- 

He’d do a lot of stupid things he’d rather not think about. And he can’t figure out why--all he knows is that he’s experiencing Kurt, that Kurt is real, and that every piece of him screams to be closer. 

“Trust yourself. You aren’t crazy.” 

Blaine nods, accepting. 

“Okay.” 

Kurt pulls him to the bed and sits them on the edge--and Blaine feels faintly embarrassed. He’d have a couch, but the only rooms in the apartment are this bedroom, the kitchen, and a tiny bathroom. 

Kurt’s smiling though. 

“You know, you lived in a place not unlike this...back then,” Kurt says, smiling fondly at the miniscule excuse for an apartment. “This is bigger, though.” 

“There are smaller places?” Blaine asks with a laugh. Kurt smiles. 

“For a runaway soldier during the World War without a penny to his name, sure,” Kurt says. “Your father was a wealthy landowner from Virginia, very attached to his old money status. When he started to suspect your...inclinations, he sent you off to the Army. But the secret got out there, and to escape persecution, you ran from D.C. all the way to New York. We met there.” 

Blaine’s eyes must be round as saucers, because Kurt giggles upon meeting them. 

“I’m sorry, it’s strange to tell you all this. It must be even stranger to hear it.” 

“It...it is. But please continue?” 

“Always so polite,” Kurt says fondly, tilting his head and grinning at Blaine sweetly. 

Blaine blushes, but Kurt just clears his throat and continues. 

“I’d come from a small town in the south--my father was a simple Georgia man, and he raised me best he could after my mother was taken by a case of pneumonia. But I was never meant for small towns. As soon as I turned sixteen, I packed a bag and I hopped trains all the way to New York City to live with my grandmother. See, my mother was from a higher class than my father, and while I might as well have been half-breed, I was still my mother’s son. I looked and sounded like her, I carried myself like her. I could pass as a genuine Weston, my mother’s family name, and so my grandmother took me in and saved me from my father’s poverty, though I kept in touch with him until...until I was taken away.” 

“What happened? How did we meet, what--” 

“I was terribly innocent,” Kurt explains. “But I’d known since I was a boy that I was...different.” 

“Gay?” 

“Mmm. We didn’t call it that, but yes. I was a homosexual--a deviant. And while I courted young ladies as expected, I was tortured by it. So I...visited an establishment that I’d...heard about, through rumor and gossip. A bathhouse.” 

Blaine blushes. He knows that some cities have “bathhouses” now, knows what gay men do there. And to know Kurt had been in one, that he’d met _Blaine_ there-- 

“I can...I can try to show you,” Kurt says tentatively. “I--there are things I won’t be able to tell you properly, things I’ll _have_ to show you eventually, when you’re ready. But...we could practice now, if you like. I think I can let you access what memories I have--there are few, and they’re faded, but the ones of you are strongest. I think I can...link us.” 

“How?” Blaine asks. 

“You learn a lot, when you’re a ghost,” Kurt says mockingly. “People came to the ruins of that asylum all the time. Other spirits there got up to all kinds of mischief, or tried to scream for help, tried to take out their anger...it...it’s a strange state of being, Blaine, I don’t know if I can really describe what it’s like to be without a body, to be only an...an imprint, a soul detached from all but the one thing anchoring you. For most in that place, their cages kept them locked inside even when their bodies were removed. Madness...and torment--they score you deep. A spirit so damaged can’t leave what’s familiar to them.” 

“How did you leave? How did you--attach to me?” 

Kurt smiles. 

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt murmurs. “I wasn’t anchored by my suffering. There’s only one reason I refused to move on.” 

He brushed Blaine’s cheek, thumb stroking over the peak of it. 

“I was waiting for you,” he says finally. “I--I didn’t know if you’d moved on. It--we were parted, and I couldn’t...I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what happened to the soul after death--I didn’t know if I’d find paradise, or hell, or if I’d live again. So I just...waited. I waited for you. And here you are.” 

Blaine bit his lip. The implications of this-- 

“So you’re my anchor, and...and we’ll have to figure out what that means once you’re informed enough to make the decision,” Kurt says, sadness and determination in equal measure in his gaze. “But in the meantime...shall I show you how we met?” 

Blaine takes a breath, and nods. 

“Show me.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of vomit

\--

Being in Kurt’s memories is like being in a particularly vivid dream--the images are strange, the focus sharp in some places and completely blurred in others, moving at varied speeds, skipping time and slowing down and repeating other moments. And he’s seeing it all through Kurt’s eyes. 

Through Kurt, he walks up the steps to a stone building, lit green. A blur, and then he’s at a desk, signing Kurt’s name illegibly and with a false last name, sliding a dollar across the desk and receiving a bundle in return--towel, robe, key. 

Kurt’s memory goes strange here. There are flashes of sensation and sound and sight; the slip of fabric on skin, footsteps down a hall, a wooden door with a warm handle. And then he is sitting in a sauna, six other men lounging around on the wooden benches. The memory is slightly shaky, nervously tinged, as Kurt’s eyes sweep the room. 

And--and there he is. 

His hair is quite short, only the faintest curl at the edges of the longer hair at the top of his head. He’s staring at Kurt--it’s odd, looking into his own eyes--his _own_ eyes, the same ones he sees in the mirror each day. He’s smiling faintly, and Kurt’s body goes tense, trembling faintly, too cold for the steamy room. But he doesn’t look away from this memory-Blaine, his chest bare, only a towel around his hips. He’s a little different from Blaine there--firmer, more muscles, more strength, and Blaine doesn’t consider himself weak or out of shape. But this Blaine, according to Kurt, was a military man. He holds himself like one, straight backed, and when he stands and heads toward the door in, he has a measured step. He holds Kurt’s gaze all the way out, and a moment later, Kurt follows him, clutching his robe tightly around his body. 

Another strange moment, and Blaine is watching through Kurt’s eyes as Blaine--not him, the old Blaine, _god this is bizarre_ \--sits on the edge of a thin, stark bed, patting beside him, the light flickering over him oddly. A blur, and Kurt’s there, his left hand covered by Blaine’s right. 

“Is this your first time here?” 

“Yes,” Kurt says, trembling. “I’m sorry, I--” 

“It’s okay. How would you like this to continue? I promise I won’t be cross.” 

It’s his voice, but it’s not. But it is. Blaine hears his Kurt in his heart, _Just watch. This is just a memory. You won’t get lost here._

The memory continues, and words are muffled and confused sometimes, but it’s clear that Blaine is putting Kurt at ease, his hands stroking over Kurt’s shoulders, his voice calming. And Kurt’s body slowly settles, relaxing and easing toward Blaine as they talk and laugh and start to touch more. 

“I’d very much like to show you what you came here for,” Blaine says. “If you’d allow me, I’d be honored to be the first to touch you like you want to be touched.” 

Kurt takes a shaky breath. “So polite.” 

Blaine smiles, wide and genuine, and the real, present Blaine wonders if he _always, still_ looks that dorky and lovelorn when he’s talking to a cute guy or a hookup. He’d think more guys would run away if they saw that look on Blaine’s face just before an understood one night stand. 

But Kurt smiles back, and Blaine leans in, cupping Kurt’s face gently, and-- _oh my god I do that I’m going to find out how I kiss this is so weird_ \-- 

Kurt’s eyes close, and it feels like he’s kissing just anyone--Kurt’s kissing kind of like he does, actually-- 

_Blaine--_

“My goodness,” Kurt’s voice says. 

And then Blaine’s eyes open, and he’s looking at Kurt. 

He’s looking out through past-Blaine’s eyes, looking at a flushed and panting Kurt, but only for a moment--he lunges forward and they capture each other’s mouths again, and the memory blurs again but the feeling of their lips remains stark, carrying Blaine along as the memories flash--removing Kurt’s robe, taking in his pale-pinked body, holding Kurt’s thighs around his hips, hearing their hushed moans and quickened breaths, feeling himself buried in Kurt’s body, thrusting slowly and kissing across Kurt’s transported face, kissing away tears and sweat and whispering comfort against Kurt’s desperate babbling-- 

_Kurt--Kurt this is--should I be watching this--_

But Kurt doesn’t answer. 

The memory sharpens perfectly and Blaine feels it through himself like he’s actually there, less like a memory now and more like an _experience_ , like he’s actually this past Blaine and not just dreaming through his memories, and his body tightens and Kurt’s clutching him hard and they’re pressed together too close too hard too much and Blaine is coming, forehead pressed to Kurt’s as Kurt sobs through his own, slick and tight and clenching around Blaine’s cock, hands grasping over Blaine’s hair and neck and shoulders and face as though they can’t decide where to land. And Blaine just breathes and kisses Kurt sweetly, and his heart swells and Kurt is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and-- 

Blaine realizes he doesn’t look lovesick and dopey when he looks at his one night stands. And he’s betting this Blaine didn’t either. This Blaine was looking at Kurt like that because he was falling in love with him, right there, right off the bat, the moment he’d seen Kurt’s face as he walked anxiously into the sauna, so innocent and lost and seeking an answer to the questions the world was telling him he was wrong to want to ask. And now, with Kurt beneath him, Blaine feels his old self’s entire body flood with the need to be near Kurt, nearer, the nearest he could get, not just body but soul as well. 

“Did I hurt you?” he asks, wiping away Kurt’s tears. “Please tell me, beautiful--” 

Kurt laughs. 

“I never knew that I could feel like this,” he gasps. “I--I didn’t know I was capable, didn’t realize--” 

“That’s why you came here,” Blaine says. “You came here so I could teach you. If you want to know more.” 

“Everything, Blaine, I want--” 

_Blaine!_

Blaine opens his eyes, and he’s not in the bath house. He’s not in another version of his body, he’s in his own. He’s lying sprawled across his bed, trembling and sweating and his stomach is roiling, and-- 

“Blaine, Blaine, talk to me--” 

Kurt’s fingers are--are _less_ on his face. Less solid. Like they’re just--not entirely there. 

“Blaine, you--you snapped away from me, I lost you, what--” 

“I saw,” Blaine croaks, and then he promptly rolls over and empties his stomach onto the floor, body seizing and heaving until suddenly it isn’t. He’s just limp and clammy and he desperately needs a bath, which he’s going to have to do without because he’s only got a cramped little tiled shower with barely enough room to turn around-- 

“What did you see?” Kurt is asking, _begging._ “Blaine--” 

“I saw me--kiss you,” Blaine replies. “And we--you and he--he fucked you--” 

Kurt makes a strange noise. 

“That’s--crass,” he murmurs. “We--well--” 

“That’s what it’s called,” Blaine snaps, feeling antsy and off balance and irritable. He gets up and strips off his shirt, wipes his mouth and tosses it toward his hamper, heading to the kitchen to grab something to clean up his mess before he heads to the shower. He pauses as he grabs the paper towels and some all-purpose cleaner, sighing. That was--that was really rude of him. What the hell is wrong with him? 

“I’m sorry, Kurt,” he says, and Kurt is right next to him again, appearing in his periphery. Unnerving, but comforting--he can be there anytime Blaine wants him. If only he’d just pretend to _walk_ up or something… “I was out of line. And--and I could feel that it wasn’t...it wasn’t just getting off. I-- _he_ fell in love with you. Right there. 

Kurt smiles, his eyes shining. Can ghosts cry? 

“Thank you,” he says. “I mean, he always told me that, but now having you say it--it’s the reminder I needed.” 

Blaine smiles. “What did you want? The memory ended when he offered to teach you more, and you said you wanted something. What did you want?” 

Kurt’s mouth twists. Blaine can’t tell why. 

“I said I wanted him,” Kurt says. “I wanted everything with him.” 

“Kurt,” Blaine whispers. He’s not capable of more, standing there with cleaning products in his hands, shirtless and feeling sick and tired and confused but resisting the suspicion that he’d lost his mind. It’s coming easier, now. 

“Yes?” 

“Was that--was that my own memory?” he asks, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it. “It was real?” 

“Let’s check,” Kurt laughs. “What did you call me, when you asked if I was all right?” 

Blaine smiles softly. 

“I called you beautiful.” 

Kurt drops his eyes to the floor and smiles. Blaine stares at him--it’s still true, even if Kurt’s just a walking, sentient memory--Blaine _remembers_ him, if only a little bit. And if he could remember once, he could remember again. 

If he wanted to. 

“I’m going to clean up and take a shower,” Blaine says. “But when I’m done--I want to try something. If you’re willing.” 

“What’s that?” Kurt asks. 

Blaine takes a deep breath. This is the plunge--he took one without realizing it, when he left Kurt’s memory and somehow accessed his own. Now he wants to take another, this time with full intent. He looks at Kurt, the phantoms of the feelings his previous self barely fading in his chest, and the fear of this experience, of being _haunted_ and experiencing a dead man’s mind, of the possibility of having gone insane and of all the unknown that faced him...the fear leaves him, replaced with an aching need. 

“I want to do it again,” he says. “I want to remember more.” 

\--


	6. Chapter 6

The water beats hot down on Blaine’s back. There’s no sign of Kurt, but Blaine knows he’s… _around._ He’s inside Blaine’s head, after all. That’s how he left the asylum. That’s how he appeared in full form and how Blaine can feel him even when he’s not really there.

But he _is_ there. That’s what Kurt tried to tell him, what Blaine is so confused about. Blaine can feel him. He can touch him, he can see and hear him. He can even smell him--there’s a faint whisper of lemongrass whenever he appears. And if Blaine tasted him, if he put his mouth on Kurt’s skin…? 

He’s real. He’s real to Blaine. And accepting it puts a sick pit deep in his gut. Because Kurt’s not real to anyone else--if he were to leave his apartment, go out into the world, walk hand-in-hand with Kurt, nobody would see him. They’d just see Blaine with one hand sticking out and curled around nothing. They’d think he was crazy. 

Maybe he is. Maybe he did go insane in that asylum. There are stories about that all the time--people go somewhere haunted and lose their minds. 

But ever since Blaine lost Kurt in the memories, ever since he saw memories that weren’t Kurt’s, he’s been certain. 

Those were _his_ memories. They were _familiar,_ they were _real._ He didn’t lose Kurt in the memories--he just accessed his own. Something in Kurt’s memories unlocked his own, something deep and atavistic that rose to the surface when he experienced two souls connecting for the first time, almost a hundred years ago. 

There’s no more doubt. That Blaine, that runaway soldier hiding from the consequences of who he was, that man trying to find peace with the needs of his heart and body and mind, that man who fell in love with Kurt within moments--he _is_ Blaine. They are one and the same. That was _him_ , making love to a beautiful, confused young man acting on his nature for the first time. 

It’s real. It feels real. It needs to be real, or Blaine has disconnected so thoroughly that he can’t see it anymore. And that sick emptiness reminds him that it’s a possibility. But he has two choices--he can run from this, head to a hospital and tell them he’s hallucinating, cut off every connection to it through pills and therapy and he might still never escape it. It could torture him for the rest of his life. 

Or he can accept it. He can take this as it comes, experience it, _let_ himself experience it. He can learn from it. And...he could maybe gain something from it that he’s always craved. 

Maybe it’s just the leftovers of the flashback. When he’d first snapped out of it, he’d just been sick--he’s never experienced anything like that before, and it was disorienting and the stress of it affected him. He’d heard of people having flashbacks reacting like that before--that’s what it had to be. That strong of a memory _did_ something to him. And he’d been ill and scared and had taken it out on Kurt. 

That was what clued him into the connection with his feelings for Kurt now. All he wants, standing beneath the sharp stream of water, is to have Kurt in there with him, holding him, the water washing over both of them, with no room to flow between. 

He’d been comfortable enough with Kurt to snap at him. And now he’s craving intimacy. And it’s completely different from what he’d felt before the memories. Something about accessing that soul-memory unlocked some residual feelings for Kurt. Something that remained through lifetimes. 

The implications of that staggers him, and he leans against the wall and breathes carefully. He’s always wanted to believe in soulmates. Is this the proof? 

He can’t feel happy about it. Because if what he’s feeling is true, if it’s real, if he’s not insane--his soulmate is dead. 

_Blaine._

Blaine crumples. He covers his face with his hands and lets the intense, sudden tears flow, a sob tearing from his throat. And then Kurt’s there, holding him just like he wanted, skin to skin. 

“I can be whatever you need me to be right now, Blaine,” Kurt says into his hair, rubbing his hands up and down Blaine’s back. His nerves alight, and his skin tingles, and those hands are _there_ he can _feel_ them-- “If you need me, I can...I can be here. I think--I think I can be as real as possible for you. We’re connected, and as long as I’m in your heart, as long as you let me be here, I can...your body will perceive me. I can be whatever you need, do whatever you want. I’ll do anything, Blaine. And if that means you want me to disappear instead...I’ll do it.” 

Kurt pulls back and looks down at Blaine, lips trembling. 

“Since you...you released me, I’m free to--move on,” Kurt says. Hesitant, halting, but honest. Blaine’s never seen anyone with such courage. “I’ll--I’ll move on. And I don’t know if I’ll just fade away, or if I’ll be born somewhere in this world, but...I’ll do it, I’ll leave. If you need me to go.” 

Blaine sniffs and buries his face in Kurt’s neck. It’s real, it’s real, it’s real-- 

“Stay,” he begs. “Please, just--just for now. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you, but I’m so confused, Kurt--” 

“Shhh,” Kurt soothes, petting Blaine’s hair. “I’ll be here as long as you need me. I can help you remember, or I can help you forget--” 

“No,” Blaine interrupts. This is the precipice, this is the edge. And he dives. “I don’t want to forget you. I want to...I want to know more. I want to remember.” 

Kurt kisses his forehead. 

“Then we’ll make it happen.” 


	7. Chapter 7

They don’t do anything else that day or night. Blaine just curls up in bed, and he feels Kurt beside him, surrounding him, soothing him. There’s a deep calm in it, and he sleeps deeply.

And he dreams. 

There’s no form. No cohesive string of events. He just has flashes. The sound of Kurt’s laughter rings clear one moment, and the next he’s sitting in a chair and having a cigarette with Kurt and an elderly woman. Then he’s in bed with Kurt, and the next moment he’s in some kind of factory, his hands working with something metal. They’re all blurred and stilted and abrupt, but he wakes with the feelings they left, a jumble of emotions that feel like remnants, like deja vu and like a sudden recalling of something forgotten. Realization. Recognition. And Kurt’s still beside him, not sleeping, not doing anything but stroking his arm as he wakes, bringing him gently into reality again. 

This reality, anyway. 

“I have to go to class,” Blaine says, rising from his bed and stretching. “Um...you’ll be with me.” 

“I’ll stay quiet, Blaine,” Kurt promises. “I don’t want to interrupt your life. I can just--fade for a bit, if you like. Or I can...observe. There are many things I’ve missed, being trapped all these years. I don’t really understand your world.” 

“Um...yeah, no, go ahead and...and observe,” Blaine says, startled. Why didn’t he think of that before? “And uh...if--if you want, you can...you can look in my head? For information. On what you see.” 

Kurt smiles. 

“That’s very kind of you,” Kurt says. “I--I may. With your permission. I’d like to understand you better. But I promise not to invade your privacy.” 

Blaine clears his throat. The nerves rise again, and he comes to a decision that sets them trembling. 

“I--I don’t mind,” he says. “You can...you can look. Anywhere. I--I don’t want to hide anything from you.” 

Kurt blurs before him, and then takes his hands and stands close. He leans down and kisses Blaine’s cheek. 

“Thank you for your trust,” he whispers in Blaine’s ear, “but I would never violate your thoughts like that. You can choose to share with me what you will, but I won’t go looking.” 

Blaine turns his head, and his cheek brushes Kurt’s. Another shift, and their lips touch. 

“I want you to know me,” Blaine whispers back. 

He kisses Kurt. And it’s like kissing anyone--except it’s not, because he’s never felt anything this intensely before. And Kurt kisses back, and it’s--it’s perfect, it’s like coming alive. 

Is it like that for Kurt? 

“It’s the closest I’ll get,” Kurt says, drawing away. “I’m sorry for--for hearing that, but you should know. I’m not--not alive, Blaine. I have echoes of what I used to feel, but it’s just that. Echoes. I can’t feel anything new, I can’t...I can’t do certain things, feel certain things. I don’t have a body. I can only recall what I’ve felt before. It happens like I’m actually feeling things, but if I were to experience something completely new, I would have nothing to draw upon to approximate a reaction. That--the drive down here, for instance. I--I assumed we were in what your cars are like now, but I had only ever been in the type that existed when I was alive. They are nothing alike. But I cannot feel any excitement or curiosity about this new thing--I can only feel about it what I felt about the cars I’ve known. It’s not the same, but it’s the same reaction, even though it…I assume it’s not an appropriate reaction.” 

Blaine swallows. 

“So--so your feelings for me--they’re--they’re just feelings for him.” 

Kurt once experienced despair, if his face is anything to go by after Blaine’s words. 

“I--you _are_ him, Blaine,” he says. “Maybe a new body. Maybe a new life. But you’re the same in here.” 

Kurt puts his hand over Blaine’s heart, and then kisses him briefly. 

“I--I feel love for you.” 

Blaine nods and swallows again, feeling vaguely sick. Another puzzle to piece in his head--too many jumbled thoughts and feelings that don’t fit yet. He’ll have to sort them out. 

“Is how I feel an echo too?” he asks. “I--I’m feeling things for you, Kurt. But...but I don’t know what’s from before and what’s new.” 

Kurt cups Blaine’s cheek and strokes gently. 

“You’re not a ghost, Blaine,” Kurt says simply. “Your feelings can change and grow and nothing can stop that. Whatever you feel is simply that, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be allowed to feel it.” 

Blaine kisses Kurt again, fiercely, but only for a moment. 

“Shit, I have to go to class,” he says. “I’m sorry, I want to talk about this--” 

“Go continue your life, Blaine,” Kurt urges. “I’ll be with you if you need me, but you shouldn’t stop living for me.” 

Blaine doesn’t have any way to reply to this, but Kurt doesn’t seem to expect it. He just smiles, and then he fades. But there’s a whisper of him at the back of Blaine’s mind, and it feels like a piece of him that’s meant to be there. 

He dresses, grabs his things, and heads out. 

Kurt says little things throughout the day--just reminders of his existence, little touches to his psyche while he’s sitting in his classes. 

_Broadway is still alive. I can approve of your culture._

_Your voice is still spectacular, Blaine. Better trained now, of course._

_I’d have been appalled to see that much bare leg on a woman._

I’m _appalled to see that much bare leg on a woman,_ Blaine joked back, and Kurt’s laughter had tickled in his mind. Blaine fought to keep a straight face and pay attention, but every time the girl did anything in the class--an improv class Blaine was particularly fond of--he had to bite his lip to keep from giggling. 

By the end of the day, Blaine was desperate to return home and experience more with Kurt--see their memories together, learn more, _feel_ more. Because his feelings for Kurt have only increased--this is a man he would’ve gladly approached had they met like a normal couple. He’d have smiled at him, and asked for his number, and taken him on dates, and fallen in love with him with no qualms. He has no doubts that he and Kurt are perfect for each other--complimentary in every way he can conceive. Even with their differences of time and culture, they’ve found common ground, comparing and joking and discussing things, like the quality of the food over lunch. And Kurt’s inability to really learn and grow hasn’t been as much of a problem as Blaine had feared--he can still remember his own life, and perceive the differences, and comment on it. He’s witty, sharp, and opinionated. Blaine’s absorbed by him. 

As soon as they arrive back at the apartment, Blaine throws his bag aside, kicks off his shoes, and removes his bowtie. 

“Kurt?” 

Kurt is before him again, smiling. 

“You dressed differently, before. Of course, clothes are so different now.” 

“Show me,” Blaine says. “I want to see another memory.” 

“You--you’re sure? After last time--” 

“I know what to expect now,” Blaine insists. “I--I’ll keep my garbage by the bed, just in case, okay?” He moves the little bin over and lies on the bed, flat on his back with his hands laced across his stomach. “Show me--I don’t know, anything. What was my life like?” 

Kurt smiles, and then, with a shy look, climbs atop Blaine, straddling his hips, barely touching but for his calves next to Blaine’s thighs. 

“Close your eyes,” Kurt instructs. “I can show you--I can show you what you let me know of your life. You kept much of it to yourself.” 

“Why?” 

“I believe you felt shame,” Kurt says softly. “My life was that of a gentleman--you had left that sort of life behind and--and I knew very little. You didn’t want that to color our relationship. And--it would have, early on.” 

“What about later, then?” Blaine pushes. “Did you ever find anything out?” 

“Yes,” Kurt replies. “Now hush, and close your eyes. I’m going to take you to the memory--and--and we’ll see if you start to remember yourself at any time. If you do, I will try to keep a connection this time, so you aren’t as--uncontrolled.” 

Blaine closes his eyes. A cool touch of fingertips on his lips, and then a swimming feeling behind his eyes, and he falls. 


	8. Chapter 8

It starts in Kurt’s mind. He’s sitting in a lavish room, sitting back and sipping at a drink while an elderly woman sits across from him, speaking in a voice with far more vigor than her body seems to contain. 

“--such a dreadful business,” she was saying. “I expect that you’ll be discreet when he arrives. No mention of his indiscretion with that Jewish harlot--” 

“Of course not, Gran,” Kurt agrees softly. “I imagine I’ll be spending a good deal of time introducing Brody to better company. I wouldn’t want him ill disposed to me.” 

“You’re a good boy,” his grandmother says with a nod. “Unlike your cousin. Keep him away from the low places I’m sure he’ll be eager to frequent.” 

There’s a gentle knock, and a sharply dressed man bows his head. 

“There’s a visitor for young Mr. Hummel. A Mr. Anderson.” 

“Is this your friend you’ve spoken of?” Gran asks, an eyebrow raised. Blaine can’t tell anything from the look-- 

“Yes, Gran,” Kurt confirms, rising from his seat. “I’ll take his company in the--” 

“I want to meet him.” 

Kurt’s face goes rigid, but he simply bows his head. 

“I’m sure he’d be honored to meet you, Grandmother.” He turns to the waiting servant. “Show him in.” 

Kurt moves to stand by his grandmother, one hand on the low back of her couch. She remains seated, watching the door expectantly. 

And then Blaine enters the room, standing with shoulders back and chin high as the door shuts behind him. 

_You were wearing your best clothes,_ Kurt whispers to Blaine. _You were terrified out of your mind._

“Blaine,” Kurt says genially. “Come in, meet my grandmother.” 

Blaine approaches and stands before Gran, smile charming. 

“Grandmother, this is my good friend, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt says. “Blaine, my grandmother, Margaret Weston.” 

“An honor to meet you, Madame,” Blaine says smoothly, taking her proffered hand and bringing it to his lips, stopping just short of brushing her wrinkled hand. 

“And you as well, young man,” Gran responds politely, folding her hands in her lap and smiling up at Blaine. Her words muffle and fade, and Blaine recognizes that Kurt’s filling in details--he wouldn’t remember exact words after all this time. “My Kurt has spoken highly of you. I understand your family comes from Virginia.” 

“Yes, Mrs. Weston,” Blaine replies--words fuzzy, just like Kurt’s grandmother’s. “My father’s estate is just outside of Norfolk. He’s an investor for several military enterprises in the area.” 

“And what brings you North?” 

“I’ve settled here to seek my own investments,” he says. “My older brother will inherit my father’s estate, and I wished to establish on my own behalf rather than find myself a burden.” 

“How enterprising of you, Mr. Anderson,” Gran replies. Suddenly, her words sharpen again. “Now--if you’ll excuse an old woman, I’ll be retiring for the evening.” 

Blaine offers his hand to help her from her seat, and she takes it with a nod, patting it before letting it go as she turns to Kurt on her way out. 

“Entertain your guest, Kurt,” she says. “But remember you’ve an invitation to call on Miss Pierce tomorrow afternoon.” 

“Yes, Gran,” he says, giving her his arm to the door, after which she pats his cheek and slips away. 

Kurt whirls around and checks the room before striding forward and kissing Blaine swiftly. 

And again, it’s the key to Blaine’s memory awakening. There’s no magical sensation--he doesn’t fly through a shining tunnel, he doesn’t zoom through their lips. He just opens his eyes and he’s suddenly in his former body, and the memory dulls, blurs. 

_Blaine, I’m still here,_ Kurt says, his touch faint. _Relax. I won’t let go of you._

There a confusing moment, but then the memory clears, and it’s as though Blaine is actually living it--sharp and clear and _happening._

“--to call on you like this, I must seem a boor to your grandmother--” 

“Nonsense,” Kurt says. “Sit, tell me what brings you like this.” 

He pulls out a silver cigarette case and offers one to Blaine, who takes it gratefully, pulling a book of matches from his own pocket. He lights and puffs the acrid smoke, settling in a chair close to the fire. Kurt pours Blaine a drink and Blaine takes it as well, sipping it gratefully. 

When Kurt sits, Blaine set his drink down and runs a hand through his hair, fingers ruining the slicked styling. 

“I’ve been laid off from the factory.” 

Kurt sits forward. 

“What happened?” 

Blaine scoffs 

“My manager is a suspicious bastard--” 

Kurt’s face drains of color. 

“He knows?” 

Blaine immediately reaches over and touches Kurt’s hand. 

“No, love,” he assures. “Not us. But he suspects something...something I’ve not had the heart to tell you of.” He takes a deep breath. “My heritage.” 

“Your heritage?” Kurt asks. “Your family’s from Virginia--” 

“My father is from Virginia,” Blaine corrects. “His wife, rest her soul, was not my mother. My father had an affair with a young woman from the city, a--an available woman in a disreputable burlesque theater. An immigrant.” 

“Blaine--” 

“She was Asian, though my father never bothered to find out her specific origin,” Blaine said. “She bore me and then left me on my father’s doorstep. To avoid scandal, his wife agreed to say that she was my true mother--she was a sickly woman, often bedridden, so the ensuing gossip was minimal. When she died, people stopped questioning. I’m lucky enough to have little evidence of my Eastern heritage, and my father raised me like he did my brother. Until, of course, my abnormalities were discovered--” 

“Blaine, please--” 

“So you are aware now,” Blaine concludes. The present Blaine can feel the trepidation, strong, sharpening the memory with its strength. Kurt is in high relief, the rest of the room fading to background. “If you wish to--to end what we--” 

“Never,” Kurt hisses. “What does your heritage matter to me?” 

“Because of it, I am destitute,” Blaine insists. “All the immigrants in the factory were told to leave, and I among them.” 

“You can seek another job--” 

“I’m sure my reputation will precede me to any respectable position,” Blaine says. “The half-breed invert--” 

“Blaine, do not speak of yourself like that.” 

“I see few options for me here, Kurt,” Blaine says. “I--I believe I could find work in vaudeville--” 

Kurt’s eyes narrow. 

“You know my love of performance, but vaudeville troupes are often itinerant. Are you suggesting that you would abandon me--” 

“Kurt, how can you love a man like me?” Blaine asks, crumbling internally. He finishes his drink quickly, tossing it back, allowing the burn. “A deserter, a liar, penniless, likely to soon be homeless--” 

Kurt rises and moves to kneel at Blaine’s feet. Blaine looks alarmed, but Kurt grabs both his hands and stares up at him. 

“I care nothing for any of that,” Kurt insists firmly. “I care only that you love me in return. Do you?” 

Blaine clears his throat, pushing back the urge to cry. 

“You know I do.” 

Kurt rises abruptly. 

“Then I see no reason that you should seek to leave the city and seek to join the vaudeville,” he says imperiously. “I find myself in need of a manservant. A young man of position has many obligations, I simply do not have the ability to manage myself alone.” 

“Kurt, that’s absurd--” 

“I’ll speak to my grandmother in the morning.” Kurt pulls Blaine to standing. “I’ll hear no arguments. It is our duty as a family of means to help our friends when society treats them ill. I’m certain my grandmother will be sympathetic and extend her hospitality and employment.” 

“Kurt--” 

Kurt cuts him off with a kiss, and Blaine feels a tug--not from the memory, but from somewhere else--a growing pull that he can’t resist. 

_Blaine, wake up._

He blinks his eyes open, and he’s on the bed, Kurt still straddled above him. The sun is much lower, and Blaine is severely uncomfortable. He’s sweating, his stomach is rumbling, his limbs are stiff, and he desperately needs to pee. 

“What happened?” Blaine asks. “Did--did your grandmother take me--him--us in?” 

Kurt nods. 

“She was suspicious, but you had made a favorable impression on her, and she was grateful that I had a friend. Many in that society found me...odd. A well-born man with a good family name fallen on ill fortune was not terribly uncommon, in that city. Plenty of people abandoned the old aristocratic ways for the draw of city life. They wasted their money and most returned to their families to marry and settle after their time, but my grandmother admired that you would do no such thing. She didn’t know that you couldn’t, of course.” 

Blaine sighed. 

“That’s--that’s a lot.” 

“Let’s get you up and taken care of,” Kurt says worriedly. “These memories are affecting you--” 

“I’m not sick this time,” Blaine points out. 

“There’s nothing in your stomach,” Kurt retorts. He softens. “Though, as you said--you did know what to expect.” 

“I feel okay,” Blaine says. It’s mostly true. “I just need to use the bathroom, have some dinner, and then--will you show me something else? Something happy.” 

“Blaine, I’m not sure it’s a good idea--” 

“Please?” he begs. “We’ll wait til I go to sleep--you can--can you guide my dreams?” 

“I--I might be able to help you unlock something like that, but I’m not sure,” Kurt says. “Clinging to life as a spirit doesn’t include instructions, Blaine. I’m not happy to risk this when I’m not sure--” 

“Just--please,” Blaine says. “I need--I need to know more. I want to feel it, Kurt. I want to know what our life was like.” 

Kurt stares at him stonily. 

“I’m not sure about this Blaine. But I’ll try.” 

Blaine sighs, “Thank--” 

“On one condition.” 

“Anything,” Blaine promises. 

Kurt smiles sadly. 

“You have to think about what you’re doing,” Kurt says. “I told you I’d be here as long as you wanted me, but I don’t want you to lose yourself in a life that’s not your own.” 

“You said it was--” 

“That’s not what I mean,” Kurt sighs. “It was your life--but it’s not anymore. You have _this_ one now. You can’t abandon it to lose yourself in memories. That’s all they are, Blaine.” 

“And memories can’t hurt me,” Blaine counters. “I just--I want to know, Kurt. This is a part of me. And I’m experiencing things that--that, like, no one gets to experience. Kurt, this is so special.” 

“I think there are far more special things you could be experiencing.” 

“But I’m with you,” Blaine says. “Just--let me take care of myself, and I’ll let you know if it’s too much. I promise I’ll be careful, we’ll stop if anything bad happens. Okay?” 

Kurt doesn’t look at all appeased. 

“Okay,” he says anyway. It sounds like a lie.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning for underage drinking.

The next day, Blaine doesn’t attend class.

“Blaine, you have to continue your life--” 

“Why can’t this be a part of my life?” Blaine argues. “I’m only taking one day. I just--” He takes Kurt’s hands and leads them to the bed, sitting on the edge. “I want to know, Kurt. This is--amazing. I’m experiencing a whole life with you in a couple of days.” 

“Blaine, my feelings for you are here because they always have been,” Kurt says. “Whatever your feelings for me--Blaine, I’m a ghost. I’m dead. You can’t--” 

“You’re my soulmate, Kurt,” Blaine protests. “I--I can’t have you in this lifetime.” His eyes fill with tears, and he presses the heels of his hands against them to stem the flow. “I just--it’s unfair, I just want everything I can with you, and this is what I can have--” 

“Oh, Blaine.” 

Kurt wraps him up in his arms, and Blaine lets go and cries when he realizes that Kurt isn’t actually holding him up--he can’t, he’s not _really_ there. He can only make Blaine’s nerves feel like something is touching him. He doesn’t have a body to really touch Blaine. 

None of it’s real. Blaine knows that. But this is what he can have. And he wants it--he wants his soulmate, he’s always dreamed of finding the perfect person for him. If that means living life with just a voice in his head, he’ll take it. There’s no rule that says he can’t love a voice, can’t love a soul. What does a body matter? 

“Blaine, I can never give you everything you want or deserve--” 

“I get to decide that, Kurt,” Blaine says, pulling back and sniffling. “I want _you._ Please, let me--let me have that, please--” 

“Okay, shh, okay,” Kurt murmurs, stroking Blaine’s arms. “What do you want right now? What can I do to take away your pain?” 

Blaine laughs and wipes his face, taking deep, settling breaths. 

“Show me when we were happy,” he begs. “Please, something--something beautiful.” 

Kurt smiles sadly at him. 

“Okay.” 

\-- 

Blaine wakes a few hours later, trembling and sweating but not nearly as affected as before. He’s getting used to the transition into the memories--the flash into his own, separating from Kurt and experiencing his previous life. 

This time, Kurt had shown them alone in Blaine’s apartment, making slow love and lying in Blaine’s narrow bed between peaks of passion, kissing and caressing each other’s naked bodies, talking and laughing and enjoying each other without pause or interruption. It’s everything Blaine’s wanted and more for himself--and he gets to experience it. It feels so perfect, and though the memory is blurred and the events of it pass strangely, jumping from giggling and touching to sweet, playful sex, and back to cuddling and dozing without much transition--Blaine is so happy. It’s like it’s his own memory now--he can carry this with him forever. 

Kurt allows him to shower and change his clothes without a comment, but he looks to Blaine’s desk and stares blankly when his cell phone buzzes from where it’s charging. 

“Blaine, why is that thing shaking?” 

Blaine is already walking over, chewing the last of the sandwich he’d made himself. 

“It’s a phone, Kurt.” 

“Strange. Why aren’t you answering” 

“It’s a text message,” Blaine says. “Um...kind of like...a telegraph, I guess. I get words instead of someone talking to me.” 

Kurt’s eyebrows furrow, but he doesn’t comment as Blaine swipes the screen and checks the message. 

**Tina: Lane and I are going out tonight. Come with?**

Blaine’s about to decline when he notices Kurt reading over his shoulder. 

“Where are they going? Your friends?” 

“Probably a bar,” Blaine replies. “Or a club. They’re going to be drinking.” 

“You should have a drink with them,” Kurt says. “It’s only proper to accept an invitation like that.” 

Blaine huffs a brief laugh. 

“It’s--it’s not quite like that now, Kurt,” he explains. “There will be...dancing, and people trying to hook up, and everyone will probably be really drunk--” 

“Would that be fun for you? Have you done this before?” 

“I have,” Blaine admits. “It’s kind of standard for people in college. It’s how we...socialize, I guess. One way, at least.” 

“You should socialize,” Kurt urges. “Go have fun with your friends. I’ll be right there with you, but I’ll be quiet if--” 

“No, no, I--” Blaine bites the corner of his lip. “I’m not sure I want to go. I’m not in the mood--” 

“Blaine, please go,” Kurt says. “At least to see your friends? You’ve been spending so much time here alone--” 

“I’ve been spending time here with you--” 

“Please? Do this for me?” 

Blaine can’t resist that, nor the pleading look in Kurt’s eyes. 

“Okay,” he relents. “But I don’t want to be out too long.” 

**Blaine: Sure. Where/when?**

**Tina: That Place. 9. Dress hot!**

\-- 

Blaine dresses like he normally does, but Tina doesn’t comment as she drags him to the bar and orders him some ridiculous drink. 

“You have to try this, Blaine, it’s actually a rainbow.” 

The drink is tall, with unmixed levels of liquor in, sure enough, rainbow colors. He eyes it suspiciously and carries it over to a table Tina bounces over to, where Lane is sitting sipping a beer. 

“You look like utter shit,” Lane says when he sits down, and he blinks over at her. 

“I--um, what?” 

“You have bags under your eyes and you’re like--all bloodshot and shifty. Are you okay?” 

“You do look a little sick, Blaine,” Tina agrees. 

“No, I’m okay,” Blaine says. “Just had a little bug. I’m feeling better, just a little tired.” 

“Well, if you feel well enough to be here, you’ll feel well enough to dance with me,” Tina says, and Blaine shakes his head. 

“Can I at least have some of my drink first?” 

Tina scoffs and tosses her hair. 

“Fine. If I don’t find somebody else in ten minutes, I’m coming back for you, though.” 

She struts off to the bar, tossing back the last of her drink and leaning over the bar to order again. Blaine smiles and turns back, sipping his drink, and _wow_ that’s strong-- 

“Are you--look, are you really okay?” Lane asks. “I know we barely know each other, but you got really weird at the end of the asylum trip and now you look like you’ve literally seen a ghost. You’re all wide-eyed and weird. Tina always says you’re so happy--” 

“I’m okay,” Blaine insists. “Seriously, I just picked something up.” 

Not entirely untrue, but he hopes Lane doesn’t press anymore. 

She looks dubious, though. 

“Look, I know most people think that stuff is shit, but I do it for a reason,” she says. “Did you know my family’s from down South?” 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Louisiana by way of Haiti. And my mama insists my great-grandmother was a bokor--basically a voodoo sorcerer. I never met her, but my grandma did some of the stuff her mama was supposed to do--like, black magic and summoning spirits and shit--and I’ve seen a lot that doesn’t fit with what most people want to believe. I know spirits are real. I’ve seen them. So--what I’m getting at is that I know for a fact some shit went down in that asylum and you were involved.” 

Blaine can feel his face blanching, and there’s a soft touch of Kurt in his head, like a reminder that he’s there. 

“It’s fucking true,” Lane says, leaning forward. “Blaine, you can tell me. I’ll believe you.” 

_Tell her, Blaine,_ Kurt whispers. 

“I thought I heard my name,” Blaine says. “But that’s it. It just--I just got shaken up, that’s all.” 

Lane glares at him. 

“Uh-huh. Well, when you want to tell the truth, I’m probably the one you should tell. Considering I’m the closest thing to an expert you can reliably find.” 

“Um...just--” 

“Blaine, finish your drink!” Tina cries, stumbling over. “Dance with me!” 

Thoroughly perturbed, Blaine throws caution to the wind and downs his drink in three huge gulps. The alcohol burns his throat and stomach, and he feels a brief, nauseous protest from his stomach, but it settles as Tina drags him out to the dance floor. He loses himself there--dancing, not caring, letting go as the alcohol works its poisonous magic through his veins. 

_Blaine--_

Blaine can barely hear Kurt, barely feel him, and--and it’s awful, he feels suddenly very alone, why can’t he feel Kurt? 

“I gotta--air--” 

He abandons Tina and heads straight for the door, bursting out and taking deep breaths of the cool night air. 

“Are you okay?” 

Blaine looks over at a tall guy with reddish brown hair curling over his ears, and blinks at him. _“I’m okay,” he says. “Just got stuffy in there.”_

“I hear ya,” the guy laughs. “You heading out?” 

“Um...I don’t know yet.” 

“Well...if you’re up for it, we could go back inside together,” the guy offers. “I’ll buy you a drink. Something light,” he adds, laughing as Blaine sways on the sidewalk. 

The guy’s hitting on him. 

Kurt can see it. 

“No, I--thank you, but I’m taken,” he says. “I’m gonna--go home.” 

“Sure,” the guy says, his friendliness pulled back a few notches, but he still nods politely. “Have a good night, buddy.” 

Blaine nods back, and starts walking. 

\-- 

“Blaine, you’re not taken.” 

Blaine stops as soon as Kurt says it, his voice following the click of Blaine’s door behind him. 

“What d’you mean?” Blaine asks. And oh, he’s drunk--he’d felt it particularly hard on the walk home, the sidewalk twisting when he knows for certain it shouldn’t have been, and now he’s slurring and the room keeps tilting and spinning before snapping back into place and starting all over again. 

“Blaine, I’m--we’re not--lovers, Blaine,” Kurt says. “We used to be, in your old life. But I can’t be that for you--” 

“I don’t need to have sex with you, Kurt,” Blaine says, enunciating as clearly as he can. “I--I just need _you_ \--” 

“I’m not really here, Blaine!” Kurt yells, and Blaine covers his ears and shushes him out of habit--he has neighbors-- 

“Blaine, nobody can hear me but you,” Kurt snaps. “I’m. Not. Real. I’m a ghost inside your head, I can’t be yours. And you can’t be mine. I can’t experience that. I can never really make love to you, I can never really kiss you. You’re just touching air.” 

“But not to me!” Blaine cries. “What does it matter what other people see? You’re real to _me_ , Kurt. And you’re everything I want, I love--” 

“Do _not_ finish that sentence, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt says, stony and dark. He shakes his head. “This was a mistake. I thought--I just missed you so much, I’d been waiting so long--but I should’ve just let you go--” 

“You’d’ve been stuck there forever, Kurt,” Blaine says. “You--we’d never have seen each other again, in any lifetime--” 

“Yes,” Kurt replies. “And--and that would have been unfair to both of us. You’re right--we’re soulmates, we’re meant to meet each other again. But that will never happen if I don’t move on.” 

“You promised,” Blaine says, hollow and cold. “You promised you’d stay as long as I want you--” 

“But what are you missing by doing so, Blaine?” Kurt asks. “What if--what if there’s a way for you to be happy, now? Happy with someone _real._ Who can give you everything you deserve?” 

“I don’t _want_ someone else--” 

“I made a mistake, and now we’re both paying for it,” Kurt says. “I’m sorry. But I need to move on--” 

“No, please, not yet--” 

“Blaine--” 

“Please,” Blaine sobs. “Please, please don’t leave me Kurt, I need you. I’m--I need you, I can’t go on knowing that I’ll never be with you, I can’t--” 

Kurt holds him, humming soothing noises into his hair as Blaine sobs into his shoulder. 

“Blaine, we should talk about this when you are sober,” Kurt whispers. “I’m sorry, I won’t leave you. We’ll figure it out, okay?” 

Blaine sniffles and looks up. 

“Please show me a memory,” he requests. “Please. I want--I want to be with you. I want to feel you.” 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea--” 

“God, please just let me decide for myself!” 

“Blaine, you aren’t capable of rational decisions right now. If you still want it in the morning, we’ll discuss it.” 

Blaine sighs, and shuts himself down. He keeps himself carefully calm and blank, and sheds his clothing, heading for the bed and collapsing onto it. 

“Blaine--” 

“I’m going to sleep.” 

Kurt accepts it, because in the next moment he’s on the bed, holding Blaine--or giving him the sensation of being held. Blaine can’t lean back against him. Can’t rely on him. 

So he’ll do what he needs to himself. 

He closes his eyes, and feels the alcohol rushing him to sleep. He focuses his mind, and tries to make himself feel the way he did in his memories--tries to delve into them, tries to pull up _something_ \-- 

“Blaine.” Kurt says sharply. “Blaine, no.” 

Blaine slips under, and he sinks into sleep. 

There’s a period of darkness, a feeling of resistance, but soon enough he’s dreaming--and his eyes open as Blaine Anderson, former soldier, lover of Kurt Hummel. 

And he’s smiling at his lover as he comes to. 

_Yes,_ he thinks. 

Distantly, he hears Kurt, as though he’s screaming across a great distance. 

_Blaine, don’t!_

Blaine does.


	10. Chapter 10

He’s standing across from Kurt, smiling--but Kurt’s returning smile is odd, formal and distant-- 

“Mr. Hummel!” a young lady laughs, grabbing his arm. “You wouldn’t believe--there is an enormous cat, and he acts as though he’s human! Would you accompany me?” 

They’re at a circus. Blaine’s seen pictures of circuses like this--the tents, the freak shows, the oddities. There’s a large tent straight ahead, but as they stand, they are in a row of smaller tents and booths, men crying out announcements of their attractions and prices for entry. 

“Of course, Miss Pierce,” Kurt agrees genially. “Mr. Anderson, I hope you enjoy the circus.” 

He barely looks at Blaine as he says it, and Blaine’s stomach clenches uncomfortably as he watches Kurt take the pretty young lady down to a tent several yards away. 

He turns away, and starts ambling through the crowd, half-attentive to the various shows going on in each tent. He nearly pays to enter a few--a man who is said to be able to tie himself in knots, and a beautiful, dark young woman who breathes fire, calling herself _the dragon lady_ \-- 

But the memory fades and the edges blend together, and Blaine’s disoriented and confused and totally out of control for several moments. But the memory clears, and he’s seated on some wooden stands, apparently inside the big tent, very pointedly not watching the woman doing tricks on the horse in the center of the ring. 

To his right, around the curve of the circle, Kurt sits with Miss Pierce and two others--a man and a woman. The man is handsome, but his eyes are distant and cool, and he appears unimpressed with the spectacle. The woman is leaning into his shoulder--older, blonde, still quite attractive but obviously beyond her prime. However, the young man touches her in a familiar and intimate way that seems to make Kurt, on his other side, uncomfortable. 

Kurt turns and says something out of the corner of his mouth to the man, and the man smirks and shakes his head, replying easily. Kurt turns bright red and stiffens, eyes fixing hard on the woman dismounting from the horse with a spectacular flip, landing on her feet and rising to great applause. 

Blaine continues to stare at Kurt. And he can hear his old self’s tumultuous thoughts--plans of running away, joining a circus or a vaudeville act, somewhere where people of alternative backgrounds and lifestyles can find acceptance. There’s a brief flash of memory that removes Blaine from the seat in the circus tent, a vision of two men holding hands and brushing their noses lovingly, behind a curtain--but then it flashes back to the tent and Blaine’s eyes lock with those of the man next to Kurt. 

His eyes narrow, and he tilts his head, surveying Blaine closely. Blaine turns his head, trying to pay attention to an act of clowns, but after a few moments, his eyes are drawn back. Kurt catches his eye this time, his face white and cold, one eyebrow raised, contempt all over him. He says something to the man beside him and the man laughs, and he turns away from Blaine, who feels sick. 

Another blur, disorienting, a flash, and he’s between two tents, their fabric meeting into a corner, blocking Blaine as he holds Kurt’s arms from view. Behind them is a cart, and they’re alone. 

“--can’t live like this anymore, Blaine,” Kurt is saying. “Brody’s suspicious, you should’ve heard the filth that left his mouth--” 

“Do you--do you wish me to leave you alone?” 

“No,” Kurt insists strongly, grabbing Blaine’s forearms where they’re tensed as he grips Kurt’s biceps, trembling. “I will never stop loving you, Blaine, I will never stop wishing to act upon that love. But we need to be cautious--” 

“Why can’t we leave?” Blaine begs. “Kurt, there are places we could go, places we could be safe--” 

“It is never safe,” Kurt says. “You know what happens to people like us when we are caught--” 

“Not everywhere,” Blaine persists. “Please--” 

“I have to go,” Kurt says. “Brittany will be missing me, and Brody is sure to want to leave with his wealthy widow.” He scoffs, face drawn in disgust. “I will see you back at my grandmother’s house. We’ll talk then--” 

\-- 

“Blaine!” 

Blaine lurches up from the bed, and within seconds he’s grasping his garbage pail, heaving violently. The remains of his earlier imbibing leave his body, burning him sharply on its way out, and he sobs as his body seizes and shakes uncontrollably. 

“Blaine,” Kurt says, pitying. “Please, please never do that again. I can’t bear to see you like this.” 

“What were the consequences, Kurt?” he asks, voice hoarse and weak as he sits back, wiping his mouth. And he has at least half of the idea, but he needs to know for sure-- “What were the consequences for us?” 

Kurt’s face sets. 

“You know what the consequences were,” he says, voice deadly calm. “I don’t want to discuss it further.” 

“Then let me see it,” Blaine says. “Kurt, I need to know. What happened to us, how did we end up like _this_ \--” 

“Blaine, you can’t keep doing this,” Kurt says, standing and backing away from him. “You can’t. You have your own consequences you need to worry about.” 

Blaine shakes his head. “What are you talking about?” 

“You’re going to end up just like me, Blaine,” Kurt warns. “People are going to think you’re insane and they’re going to lock you up.” 

Blaine shakes his head again. 

“Kurt, it’s not like that anymore--” 

“Really? What would happen if you told someone that you were seeing and hearing someone that wasn’t there? That you were able to access memories of a previous life and knew all sorts of details you would have no way of possibly knowing? What would that person say?” 

Blaine shuts his mouth. He knows what they would say. 

“I need to do this,” Blaine insists. “I--I need to be with you, Kurt. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. How am I supposed to live a normal life knowing that you and I will never be together?” 

Kurt narrows his eyes. 

“I won’t be a part of this,” he says. “Can’t you see how it’s effecting you? I won’t be a part of you destroying yourself.” 

Without giving Blaine a single moment to reply, Kurt disappears--no fading, no slow disappearance for Blaine’s comfort--he’s just gone. And Blaine knows Kurt’s still somewhere in his head, but he’s utterly silent, as disconnected as he can be. 

“Kurt,” Blaine calls. “Kurt, please come back.” 

Silence, inside and out. Blaine feels a sharp sting of loneliness, and he fights back the tears as he gets up and goes to the bathroom to clean himself up. 

But when he gets back to bed, and gets beneath the covers, Kurt’s warning means nothing to him. The draw is too strong--he needs to feel Kurt, he can’t let his life be one regret that he missed out on something so wonderful. So he’ll experience it as long as he can. And if Kurt ever decides to move on, he’ll either wait for him, or he’ll join him. He can’t live without his soulmate. Not after feeling what it’s like to have him. 

He focuses every thought on the memories--sees himself inside of that Blaine’s body, sees himself with Kurt. And he dreams.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning for serious self-neglect and unhealthy obsession.

Blaine can’t access the memories right anymore. Not without the connection to Kurt.

But Kurt won’t come when he calls. 

It’s been three days, and Blaine has completely skipped class the entire time, and he has no plans to return until--until what? He doesn’t even know. He just knows that he cannot leave this apartment, leave this bed, until he succeeds, until he sees Kurt again, until he can have him-- 

But he only sees snippets. Little flashes, mostly things he’s seen already. The few that are new aren’t anything to do with Kurt--they involve a time before Kurt, a time when anyone in the bathhouses would do, when he struggled with an unknown weight on his heart, when he wandered the city alone. Never more than a few seconds--but it leaves him sick each time, and he hasn’t been able to keep a single bite of food down. He’s only managed some water, and he knows that’s the only reason he’s even able to get out of bed. 

But he has to keep trying. 

Finally, at the end of the third evening, he stops trying to reach Kurt inside of himself. He’s not going to help. But he’ll come around, he has to, and if Blaine remembers something, if he remembers something good, something _them_ \-- 

He lies back, and _thinks._ He thinks of Kurt, in his stylish clothes, how his eyes look when they’re making love, his mouth gasping out Blaine’s name, how his skin feels when the sweat has dried and the cool morning draft is slipping through his windows-- 

_Blaine…_

Blaine comes to in Kurt’s room in his grandmother’s house, back in 1915. He’s fully dressed, but he and Kurt are scrambling to finish dressing Kurt, buttoning up his shirt while Kurt fusses with his tie. He snaps on his suspenders, and Blaine grabs his jacket and starts to pulls it over his arms just as there’s a perfunctory knock on Kurt’s door and the creak of its hinges as it swings in without another warning. 

“Kurt,” Brody says, smiling strangely. “Just getting dressed? It’s nearly noon.” 

“Just changing after I spilled some coffee on myself,” Kurt says stiffly. “I’m afraid I’m rather clumsy today.” 

“Well, you did spend the evening with Miss Pierce, if I recall,” Brody says with a smirk. “I’d be tired myself--” 

Blaine turns his back. He knows what his face looks like, he knows it’s drawn in heartbreak--because Kurt had spent the evening with Brittany Pierce, because he had taken her out and intended to escort her home and make known to her father his intentions to propose. But Brody only thinks that Kurt is doing what Brody is wont to do with high-born ladies--mess about, tarnishing their names and refusing to take their dowries and their hands. And low-born ladies as well, come to that. 

But Brody will see despair on Blaine’s face either way. And what conclusion can he draw when a gentleman’s groom looks as though his world is destroyed upon the mention of his gentleman with a lady? 

So he turns away, and bows his head to Kurt, and marches smartly from the room. 

“Odd fellow, your servant boy,” Brody says. Blaine listens from behind the side door, the one that leads down the short hallway to his own. “You’d think it not the custom to bring one’s servants to a new home when one weds a wealthy lady.” 

“I fear Mr. Anderson might have had a bit too much drink on his night off, as a matter of fact,” Kurt replies coolly. “He’s always out of sorts when I return late. He made friends with the kitchen boy and the footman, they are _such_ terrible influences--” 

“Interesting,” Brody says easily. “Perhaps we shall keep a closer eye on him.” 

“Yes, perhaps,” Kurt says. Blaine envies his composure--not a tremble in his words, his face most likely a carefully blank mask. 

“Well, I simply wanted to inform you that I’ve been invited to an exclusive party tonight,” Brody says. “I won’t be able to join you and Miss Pierce in your visit to the theater--” 

“Think nothing of it,” Kurt says. “Miss Pierce is also unable to attend and has sent her regrets. One of her...family members is under the weather, and she wishes to tend him.” 

“A sweet girl,” Brody says. “Well, it’s a shame this get together does not allow further invitations, but you understand how it is. I won’t be able to procure you one at such short notice.” 

“Not at all. I’ll retire early. All these nights away are tiring. I’m afraid my stamina is not comparable to your own.” 

The barb is subtle, but Blaine bites his lip against a laugh. Brody makes no reply to it. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, then,” Brody replies, and there’s a click of the shutting door only moments before Kurt rushes out to where Blaine stands listening in the hallway. 

“He’s suspicious,” Kurt breathes out, his chest suddenly heaving, his skin pale and sickly tinged. “Blaine, we have to be more careful--” 

“We’ll talk tonight,” Blaine promises. “Is your grandmother still attending supper with Mr. and Mrs. Pierce?” 

“Yes, though I was truthful--Brittany won’t be attending, and so neither shall I. Leave the politics of it all to the elder generation for tonight.” 

“Who is she caring for?” 

Kurt smiles. 

“That confounded cat of hers,” he chuckles. “She loves the beast dearly. Evidently he has been under the weather, and she’s summoned a doctor to check him this afternoon and plans to attend his bedside for his recovery.” 

“She is a sweet girl,” Blaine says noncommittally. Kurt smiles and ducks his head. 

“She is.” 

Blaine rubs his arms. “We’ll talk tonight. I promise. We’ll--we’ll figure it all out.” 

Kurt turns to walk away with a nod, heading down the hall and around the corner toward the front stairs. 

The door next to Blaine opens. Kurt comes out...again. 

“He’s suspicious,” Kurt whispers. Blaine, his cognizant piece, the piece that remembers from his time in the present, starts to feel uneasy. Why is the memory replaying? “Blaine, we have to be more careful--” 

“We’ll talk tonight,” he promises again. His lips move against his will, and he struggles to wake himself. It’s just a dream, he can wake himself from a dream if he’s aware, can’t he-- “Is your grandmother still attending supper with Mr. and Mrs. Pierce?” 

“Yes, though I was truthful--Brittany won’t be attending, and so neither shall I. Leave the politics of it all to the elder generation for tonight.” 

Blaine panics. _Kurt!_ he calls. _Kurt, help! Kurt!_

“Who is she caring for?” 

“That confounded--” 

Blaine feels a tearing sensation, as though his mind, between bodies, is stretched to the point of separation. He screams, and then he’s awake on his bed, trembling and vomiting over the side of the bed, crying and babbling and unable to speak sense between heaves of his body, nothing but bile burning its way up his throat. 

“Blaine, you stupid, stupid boy,” Kurt scolds. “This is unacceptable. I cannot have you doing this again, I almost couldn’t reach you--” 

“What--what happened?” 

“You went too far inside your head!” Kurt exclaims, brushing back Blaine’s hair and--and it doesn’t move, it just feels like it does. _He can’t actually touch you, Blaine--_ “I almost couldn’t reach you, you sank so far. I almost lost you.” 

He embraces Blaine, and Blaine clings back. 

“What would have happened?” 

“I don’t know,” Kurt admits. “A coma? Insanity? Death? You were barely in your body, Blaine, you’re lucky your brain was not _damaged_ , you were hardly breathing--” 

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, tears leaking from the pain in his chest and throat, from the ache in his heart. “I’m sorry, Kurt, I--” 

“I know,” Kurt interrupts. “I know. I know it’s not fair. I wish to be with you just as you wish to be with me.” 

Blaine shudders. 

“We really can’t, can we. Why didn’t you move on, Kurt? Why didn’t you find me?” 

“Blaine, I--I told you I was trapped,” Kurt says. “I thought I could wait for you, but when I realized you weren’t coming, I--I’d imprinted on that asylum. There was too much--too much holding me back. Pain, it can be like shackles--” 

“I need to know,” Blaine says. “Show me. Please.” 

“What do you need to know?” 

“How we...we got separated,” Blaine says. “I want to know why.” 

“Blaine, I can tell you why--” 

“No!” Blaine sheds his clothing and drops it into the mess he’d left, wiping his mouth and standing there, sweating in his briefs and running his fingers through his tangled curls. “No, Kurt, I need--let me see it. I don’t know why I didn’t wait for you, why didn’t I find you, why--” 

Kurt holds Blaine again, and Blaine feels skin on skin. He looks down and Kurt is in nothing but underwear--he recognizes it as a pair of his own that he wore the other day. Kurt “borrowed” it, mimicking him to give him comfort. 

“I’m so sorry, Blaine,” Kurt whispers, his bare chest pressing to Blaine’s own, his hands running over Blaine’s back as he shakes and buries himself into Kurt’s arms. “I should never have done this. I have brought you so much pain--” 

“You brought me you,” Blaine counters. “I’ll take any pain for that.” 

Kurt sighs, laying his forehead on Blaine’s shoulder. 

“You deserve to know,” Kurt says. “And maybe, once you do, I can convince you that this is not the way--” 

“You want to convince me to let you go.” 

“Yes.” 

Blaine bites his lip hard, holding back the instant urge to cling to Kurt, to keep him here no matter the cost. Kurt _completes_ him. 

But he’s also tearing himself apart for it. He feels like there is a literal scar in his mind, a rift that aches and aches. 

“Show me,” Blaine says. “Just show me this. Show me why.” 

Kurt sinks with Blaine to the floor, leaning him against the side of the bed and straddling his lap, laying a kiss to his lips. 

“You--I don’t know how you may react if I allow you to access your own memory of it,” Kurt says. “So please--please return to me when I ask it. You will probably access your own memory easily enough, but when I pull you, please, _please_ return to my memory of it and stay with me. Please.” 

Blaine nods. “Okay.” 

Kurt pets his head and strokes his scalp with his beautiful fingers, and starts to hum. Blaine, worn out and close to collapse as it is, falls easily. He hears one thing in the darkness before the light meets his eyes. 

_Let me show you the end._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for violence, death, and forced hospitalization.

Blaine does start in his own body. Kurt enters his bedroom, where Blaine is waiting, ostensibly to help him ready for bed, but Kurt crosses the room in three strides and draws Blaine desperately into his arms.

“I love you, Blaine,” he whispers. “No matter what, I love you--”

“I love you, too,” Blaine replies, barely removing his lips from Kurt’s mouth and face and neck. “I’ll do anything, anything for you--”

“Make love to me. That’s it, that’s all I need, I need you to love me--”

“Yes, I will, I will.”[[MORE]]

Their clothes are removed in a frenzy, but they take a moment to lay them out carefully, so as to redress at a moment’s notice despite Kurt’s door being locked. There are others who have keys--

They fall to the bed, and Kurt fumbles and reaches beneath his mattress until he pulls out a glass jar, pulling the cork and setting it aside before handling the bottle to Blaine.

“I want to--like we first did, at the bathhouse,” Kurt begs. “Please, I want to feel that again--”

Blaine does as requested. He slicks his fingers and spreads it over Kurt, within and without, before slicking himself and handing the bottle back to be stoppered and put away.

“I love you.”

“And I, you.”

Kurt’s gasping whines as Blaine enters him and begins to rock are like the first revelation. He remembers exactly how Kurt felt in that bathhouse, how his body had given in to such unfamiliar pleasure, something he had never realized he needed. And Blaine’s heart had given into the same--he had never expected to need someone like he needed Kurt. He kisses Kurt gently, swallowing his cries as he thrusts harder, lifting Kurt’s hips and curling his body with the impact of their flesh, his thighs and calves stroking along his sides and back as Kurt is contracted and released, again and again. Push and pull, thrust and retreat, faster and harder, their whole bodies moving together, the solid wooden headboard crashing into the wall until Blaine grabs it and hovers over Kurt, pulling it away from the wall as his hips snap forward, and with the damage to the wall stilled he can hear the growl building low in his own throat, the high keens hidden in Kurt’s throat as he bites the back of his own wrist to stifle his cries, the other hand reaching up to grab a slat of the headboard, leveraging him down into Blaine as they meet, _harderharderharderharder_ , as though the pain left behind after such intense pleasure will strengthen the testament of their love.

“Blaine. _Blaine_.”

Kurt whispers it as best he can, but squeaks of his voice crack through, and Blaine has to lean down and hush him gently, barely containing the rise of his own voice, breathing heavier and deeper to stave off the inevitable.

“Run away with me, Blaine,” Kurt sobs suddenly, his voice still tampered to a breath, his voice whining high on its edges. “We’ll run like you wanted. We’ll go to the vaudeville, we’ll join a circus, we’ll run West, I don’t care--”

“Yes,” Blaine groans, dropping down to mouth at Kurt’s throat and grasp his hips as his orgasm approaches. “Yes, yes, come away with me, we’ll leave tonight--”

“Yes, Blaine-- _yes!_ ”

Kurt reaches down and strokes himself, a single stroke releasing strings of come high up his belly, trailing down and pooling with the spills that come with every pump of his fist until he’s spent. Blaine kisses him once, and then pounds into Kurt _hard_ , drawing a cry from him. He grinds in, hips swiveling as his climax is milked from him in the clench of Kurt’s body, warm and wet and wetter as he spills into him with tremulous moans buried into the pulse of his throat.

_Blaine._

Blaine is hardly aware as the memory continues--he’d felt _everything_ , every thrust, every grip of fingers and lips and teeth. But there’s a sharp tug, and Kurt’s voice is calling him, outside of the memory, much clearer in his head.

_Blaine, follow my voice, my pull. As soon as you can, you need to come back--_

Blaine follows Kurt’s words, slipping back to him with astonishing ease, using their connection to return to him. When he’s aware of the memory again, he sees himself above him--he’s watching through Kurt’s eyes, feeling the dampening of his pleasure as Blaine pulls from him, the emptiness, the need--

_Stay with me Blaine. Remember that this is not real. It can’t hurt you now._

Kurt sounds as if he’s reminding them both, and then Blaine realizes why.

“I knew it.”

Brody is in the doorway with two policemen and Kurt’s grandmother, who immediately turns her back as soon as she sees the two men tangled on the bed. They spring apart, Kurt attempting to cover himself with a blanket from his bed, Blaine leaping to put on his clothes.

But before he can even button his pants over his undergarments, Brody is pointing at him.

“Take him,” he says. “He’s perverted my family’s name, and corrupted my young, impressionable cousin. Sir, your inversion is a punishable offence.”

Blaine glances at Kurt, and Kurt panics when he sees the determination in Blaine’s eyes.

“I won’t come,” he says, turning back to the police, and Kurt freezes in fear. “I will willingly leave this place, and never contact this family again, but I have not--”

“You forced yourself on an innocent young man,” Brody insists. “Do you wish to convince us that a well born gentleman like Mr. Hummel would participate in your perversion of his own free will?”

Blaine grabs his shirt and forces it over his head, standing tall.

“Your understanding of this world is--”

“Take him, before he tries to corrupt us all.”

The police march forward, grabbing Blaine around the arms. He struggles as they attempt to drag him backwards out the door.

“Kurt!” he yells. “Kurt--”

Kurt scrambles out of bed and struggles into his pants, intent on grabbing Blaine from the arms of the police and running with him. But one of the policeman releases Blaine’s arm and steps before him, letting his fist fly. It connects with Blaine’s face with a sickening _crunch_ , and blood streams from his nose, which is bent completely out of shape.

“I won’t--Kurt--”

Kurt’s grandmother covers her ears and Brody returns to her in the doorway, grabbing her shoulders soothingly as one policeman holds Blaine and the other beats him, pulling his nightstick to slam into Blaine’s ribs and knees, crippling him.

“No!” Kurt screams, rushing forward.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Brody spits. “ _I_ shall have to end this.”

The policeman beating Blaine steps back at these words, turning and grabbing Kurt around the middle, forcing him back as he flails within the grasp, attempting to reach his lover.

“Blaine!”

Blaine is kneeling, breath whistling out of his mouth, his face and chest covered in blood. He’s wounded, blood bubbling from his mouth with every breath. Kurt clings to Blaine inside of Kurt’s head, watching with him as events proceed entirely outside of their control.

“Kurt,” Blaine wheezes, his voice rattling with his breath. “I’ll...I’ll find you. Always.”

The policeman who had held Blaine steps back, and Brody reaches behind his back and pulls up with a gun in his hand, raising it and cocking the hammer with an ominous _click._

Kurt screams, “ _Blaine!_ ” But it doesn’t drown out the loud bang from the gun as Brody squeezes the trigger.

Blaine’s body slumps over, suddenly limp, a bloody hole leaking on the side of his head, his amber eyes flat and unseeing. Kurt screams, piercing and high, and the policeman drags him coldly past Blaine’s body, ignoring his attempts to reach him and holding him firm.

“No, no, no, no, no--”

He chants at the top of his lungs all the way down the stairs, where two men in white wait.

“Put him in the back,” one says, wincing at Kurt’s shouts and screams. But no other reaction is drawn from the men as the policeman pulls Kurt to the back of a large vehicle, a wooden and metal cage on its rear. He’s thrown roughly into the cage and the door is shut and locked before he can recover. He immediately rushes to the door, banging and kicking and screaming until the car lurches forward with loud roars from the engine, dragging him away from his grandmother’s house as she weeps in his cousin’s arms, whose eyes follow him coldly until they’ve left the property.

_Wake up, now, Blaine._

He doesn’t know how he can, but Kurt is there, pulling him back to his life, to the _living._

“I--I died,” Blaine says, tears streaming down his face. He’s slumped on the floor, in almost the same position as his--his _body_ , bloodied and weakening before the shot even fired--

“And now you’re here,” Kurt says. “I wouldn’t suggest seeking out memories of a potential time in between--”

“Why would I?” Blaine says, his voice as flat as those eyes, staring down the length of the expensive carpet, to the pile of the clothes they had failed to put on, tangled together in a heap on the floor-- “You weren’t there.”

“I thought you were trying to find me,” Kurt says in a small voice. “I--I didn’t know you’d intended me to follow. Though I did--try.”

“How long were you in the asylum, Kurt?”

“I don’t know,” Kurt admits.

“Why not?”

Kurt puts a cool hand on his forehead, and Blaine sees flashes as Kurt speaks to him softly, touching him, grounding him--

“Most patients were allowed freedom to walk the halls, interact,” Kurt explains, showing what Blaine recognizes as the first floor of Elmhurst in its heydey. “It was a private hospital, for the wealthy, of course.”

Then another flash, _Kurt muffled and cuffed in iron as he was dragged down a staircase._

“I was not cooperative, though. So I was sent down to where the difficult patients were brought when their families refused to have them transferred to the common state asylum.”

_Kurt shackled, his face covered in leather, which tenses with every move of his arms and legs, bound behind his back. Chains rattle, and Kurt’s tears wet the half-mask tightened around his jaw._

“I--I don’t remember much after the first few weeks. Just these flashes. They--they treated me, as they often treated--those they considered insane.”

_An image, distant, of an approaching metal chair, straps built into its structure--_

“I was ill-fed. I was...abused, much like the others in the cellar, considered ‘criminally insane.’ We starved, and became ill often. Most of us didn’t recover once that happened. We were dirty and most of us who weren’t already mad became so within short order.”

“Kurt, I’m so sorry--”

“I--death was a relief,” he says evenly. “There was...something we called the Grip. A sickness. I contracted it, and while it was still in my system, a new patient came down to join us. He had influenza, and it spread among us. I--the combination, and my weakness, killed me.”

“I--Kurt, I could find out how long you were in there--”

“Does it matter?” Kurt asks vaguely. “I died. And I stayed there, and drove others mad as well, I am certain, simply by clinging and crying in the night for my Blaine. It didn’t take long until it was shut down, though--the ill practices were discovered, and it was closed. I just--stayed in my cell. I waited for you and then I couldn’t leave to find you myself.”

“But I did find you,” Blaine says. “I found you this time--”

“And it needs to be my turn,” Kurt replies. “Blaine, I need to move on. If I do...we can be together, we can find each other in _life_ \--”

“But how long do I have to wait, Kurt? I won’t even find you or be able to love you until you reach eighteen. I’m nineteen now, Kurt. I’ll be twice your age--”

“Would you still love me? Would you wait?”

“Yes,” Blaine sobs, tears overflowing, blocking his vision and his breath. “I’d wait forever. But--but I could--I could follow you, we could be reborn together--”

“I never want to hear that from you again, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt snaps. “I saw you die for me once. It will not happen again. Promise me now.”

Blaine crumples, nodding as he sobs loudly, wishing he could just follow Kurt, be _with_ him--

“I’ll return to you, Blaine,” Kurt says. “That’s my promise. But you have to let me go.”

Blaine sniffles and wipes his eyes.

“How?”

He doesn’t just need instruction on the technicals. He’s not sure how he’ll live without Kurt, for a whole other lifetime than he’s already lived--

But Kurt only answers one of the questions implied.

“Bring me back to the asylum,” he says. “I need to make peace with that torment. I need to release myself from the pain. Will you help me?”

Blaine looks into Kurt’s eyes, and then gives him a single, gentle kiss.

“Yes.”


	13. Chapter 13

Blaine borrows Lane’s car. She doesn’t ask him why, once he says where he’s going. She just hands him the keys and tells him to leave the same amount of gas he found in it.

The asylum is strange, now. Familiar. He enters, and Kurt is close, holding his hand. Nobody drives up or drives by. It doesn’t matter what it looks like.

They head inside, and down to the basement with a flashlight in Blaine’s hand lighting the way. When they reach Kurt’s old cell, he flickers inside.

“I spent so much time calling for you here,” Kurt says. “So long.”

“I’m sorry I took so long to come,” Blaine replies. His heart sinks further with every minute, but his eyes are dry. He can’t fall apart--Kurt needs him now. And he owes Kurt this.

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt says, smiling. “You came. That’s all that matters.”

Kurt looks around, runs his hand over the faded scratches in the wall, the letters of Kurt’s message-- _Fly._

“I think I’m going to follow my own advice,” Kurt says. “But I’ll keep my promise, Blaine.” He looks up. “I’ll find you this time. As soon as I can.”

“I’ll look out for you,” Blaine says, and Kurt walks out of the cell and holds Blaine face between his hands. He lays a kiss on his forehead.

“I have no doubt.”

Blaine closes his eyes.

“Goodbye, Kurt,” he says, trembling, waiting for the end.

 _No,_ Kurt whispers in his head. _I’m never saying goodbye to you._

His voice fades. His hands retreat, and finally his lips.

Blaine waits. And then he feels it--a piece of him breaking away, a sudden emptiness where before there had been warmth. His chest aches, his hands quake, he shivers in the sudden cold.

When he opens his eyes, Kurt is gone.

\--

He makes it to the car. He makes it away from the asylum. And then he pulls over on a long stretch of road bordered by thick trees, parks, and breaks down.

He cries, holding his arms across his stomach and chest, leaning his head onto the steering wheel, his seat belt removed. It had been too stifling, he already feels as though he’s constricting, squeezing, ready to implode into nothingness without Kurt to anchor him.

He survived before Kurt. And he promised he’d survive now.

But it _hurts._

He curls up and leans his head against the window, not caring about the occasional car flying by, about the cooling fall weather and the overcast sky, the wind and the heat seeping from the car. He simply weeps, sobs broken and loud, until he’s exhausted and the sky is dark and he can’t figure out how to move on from where he is.

He might have slept--he’s not sure. But he closed his eyes, and when he resurfaces from the pain and the memories and the desperate search for the feeling of Kurt somewhere, _anywhere_ , the sun is rising, and his phone is about to die, flashing the early hour when he lights up the screen.

He sets it aside, takes a deep breath, and drives.

\--

He makes it to the city a few hours later. If Kurt were there, he’d be waking and showering and changing, ready to head to the coffee shop on the way to class. But he’s in his rumpled, second-day clothes, his breath stinks, he’s got noticeable scruff on his jaw, and he just can’t find it in himself to care.

But he desperately needs a coffee. And his phone, which died halfway through the drive, needs charging--he needs to call Lane, to talk to her about this. He needs someone to know. Someone who will believe him.

He looks in her glove compartment for a car charger, but he only finds one for a wall plug. He pockets it anyway as he drives into the city, heading as close to Lane’s as possible before he finds a coffee shop. He’ll get a coffee, charge the phone, and then...maybe he can find release. Like Kurt--he can let go of the past and focus on flying to the future, where Kurt will be waiting for him.

His eyes feel too dry, his cheeks salty and flushed. He’ll clean himself up in the bathroom, that’s all he can do.

He parks the car a little ways down the street, and walks back to the coffee shop, hoping it’s good--this isn’t his neighborhood, he’s never been here, but he just needs something to keep him upright. And this shop feels right--it’s where he should stop, he’ll never make it otherwise.

He walks inside, and stands in line, rubbing a hand over his face and fingering over his pocket, making sure the phone and charger are still inside. Two people ahead of him, and he sighs. The coffee shop isn’t packed--unusual for this time of morning, though perhaps everyone had already grabbed their early morning cup and left. There are only three other people in the shop besides those in line, one couple in the corner and near the back wall--

Blaine freezes as he makes eye contact. Familiar eyes, ones he’d looked into for the last time not eighteen hours before. A small, sad smile on wide, plush lips. Luminous skin, swept brown hair, fashionable clothing. He’s similar to the first time he appeared to Blaine--but the shirt is tighter and he’s wearing a grey vest but no tie. His pants are a tight, mustard yellow, instead of loose linen--they look painted on, actually, and they’re tucked over white boots. In his left vest pocket, over his heart, is a square that looks like it’s a simple, folded white piece of terrycloth. He looks...stunning.

Blaine blinks. He’s hallucinating. Already, Kurt was right, he went mad--

But he walks forward as though drawn, and Kurt watches him calmly as he approaches. When he stops, he takes a deep breath, waiting for Kurt to disappear into thin air, smile left behind like a cheshire cat.

But he doesn’t. He just smiles, solid as ever, and stands, hands braced on the front of his thighs, his shoulders up before he extends a hand.

“Hello, Blaine.”


	14. Epilogue

Blaine sits across from Kurt, fiddling with his coffee cup. He’s cleaned his face in the bathroom, had a panic attack, and then come outside to grab some coffee before sitting down again. Kurt still hasn’t disappeared.

“I think we’re both wondering what the hell is going on,” Kurt says. 

Blaine bites his lips and nods, hardly able to look up at Kurt’s face. 

“I can...um...talk to you? About what I know, anyway.” 

“I’d--if you would,” Blaine stutters, clearing his scratchy throat and taking a sip of his coffee. 

Kurt nods. 

“I’m Kurt Hummel. I’m twenty years old. I grew up in Lima, Ohio.” 

“My friend Tina is from Lima.” 

Kurt cocks his head. 

“I--I don’t think I know any Tinas. Maybe. I didn’t really...socialize much, in school. I came out after a long time of everyone knowing anyway, and...I didn’t really have a safe place to go. So I just stayed in the background, trying to survive.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Well, it’s been a few years,” Kurt says, his smile going wry. “I’ve been doing a lot better out here.” 

“Good…” 

There’s an awkward silence, and then Kurt clears his throat. 

“So...I came out here for school. I didn’t have the nerve to go for performing, even though I always wanted to, but...I got into FIT, so I’m happy enough. I like what I’m doing. But until last night, I--something was...missing, still.” 

He looks up at Blaine, and holds his gaze. 

“I’ve never felt like...like a _person_ , Blaine. A whole person. I always felt like something was wrong with me. I’ve...been treated for depression since I was sixteen years old. But nothing ever helped. I was just...missing something. God, I've never told anyone this.” 

“Kurt--” 

“Let me finish,” Kurt requests firmly. “Last night--I was sitting at home, sketching for a class, and...and I just started sketching something completely different. I felt this...this _urge_ , and I barely remember drawing it, but--” 

Kurt leans down and reaches into his bag, and pulls out his drawing. He slides it across the table. 

It’s a drawing of Blaine. In perfect detail--his eyes, his nose, his hair and chin and cheeks, lips barely quirked up, eyes smiling straight out of the picture. Blaine stares, hardly believing. 

“As soon as I finished, I _really_ looked at it. And all of a sudden, I felt this--this _snap_ in my head. And it was like...have you ever just been doing something, or talking to someone, and all of a sudden you’re reminded of something you’d forgotten?” 

Blaine nods dumbly. Oh, does he know. 

“It was like that...but the memories were--there were _so many._ And they were...of someone else’s life. And I’ll let you know now,” he adds, speaking from the corner of his mouth, quirking his head and gesturing with both hands, as though wiping away the thought--the whole picture makes Blaine smile-- “I am _not_ in the habit of seeing things. I mean, I’ve got a perfectly functional imagination, but it’s like I’d just had a whole ton of really vivid dreams planted in my head all in a second, and it was a _really_ weird night.” 

“What do you remember?” Blaine asks, breathless. Hoping. 

“You, mostly,” Kurt admits with a faint blush, toying with his cup and looking at Blaine up through his eyelashes. “I mean...us. In...in that other life. And then us now, but--not? Half of it was a blur, I don’t even know what I’m talking about--” 

“I can...fill some things in, if you’re...um, willing to be open-minded.” 

Kurt nods, gesturing for Blaine to continue. 

“Um...so, like...a little over a week ago, I took a trip up north with some friends, we...we went to an old asylum, they wanted to ghost hunt--” 

“You mean hunt for dust motes.” 

Blaine huffs at Kurt’s cynicism. That might make things...difficult. 

“Um...just, try to keep in mind all your new...memories, okay? You’re not crazy--you just...remembered, so remember that?” Blaine asks. “Because...because I met you there. Not you-you. But um...that past you. The one...from the past,” he finishes lamely, completely losing all eloquence at Kurt’s raised eyebrow. 

“You mean you met my ghost?” 

“Um. Yes.” 

“But I’m right here. I’m twenty years old, I have twenty years worth of perfectly real memories, I didn’t just _pop_ into existence--” 

“I don’t think you did either,” Blaine assures. “But--I think a piece of you...got left behind? Because it was...it was looking for me.” 

“So...you met _part_ of my ghost.” 

Kurt sounds confused, so Blaine takes a deep breath. 

“You--you said you felt incomplete. I think that’s exactly what happened. Look, I just spent the past week with you--or someone who looks exactly like you and talks like you and _feels_ like you, and basically _is_ you, but he was a ghost and he was in my head, and I was pretty sure I was insane until I really thought about it. I mean...he was real, for me. How could I just...make him up? Make _you_ up. You’re _right here._ ” 

Kurt taps his fingers on the table, studying Blaine. 

“I can’t...write you off,” Kurt admits. “I wish I could. But I drew your face. I knew your name. I have memories of you, from somewhere way off _and_ from this past week you’ve been talking about. I mean, once is an accident, but twice is--” 

“A coincidence?” Blaine returns, smirking. 

“Well, I figure we can just skip that and call it a pattern, considering there are only two of us as it is.” 

Blaine laughs. 

“I can run with that.” 

Kurt smiles at him. 

“I’m still having quite a bit of trouble with this,” Kurt admits. “I mean, I’m putting on a good face now, but you should’ve seen me last night, I was walking around my apartment freaking out, my roommates were thoroughly confused--” 

“I bet. I’m lucky I live alone.” 

“So you understand why this is...a little odd.” 

Blaine nods, finishing his coffee. 

“I think...I think I have to believe,” he says, after a long moment. “I mean...here you are. At the coffee shop I _happened_ to stop at--” 

“I don’t usually come here,” Kurt says, and his voice is suddenly breathy. “I--there’s one a little further down that I like better. It’s a further walk, but I _always_ make it because they give me free biscotti.” Blaine laughs, and Kurt smiles with him. “But today I didn’t make the walk. And there’s no reason. I just...stopped, and knew I had to be in here. And so I just sat down, and waited, and then...you walked in.” 

Blaine blushes and looks down at the searching look in Kurt’s eyes. 

“Maybe...we were meant to meet here.” 

Kurt says nothing as he finishes his own coffee. 

“You probably don’t believe in fate,” Blaine continues. Kurt gives him a look, and Blaine takes it as corroboration. “But...unless we’re both having the same _exact_ hallucinations, that means...that we’ve met in two lives, now. And...we met for a reason. Our...our _souls_ keep finding each other, Kurt. And...and I don’t know you, not _this_ you, but I think I know at least enough to say I want to. I’m...I’m _meant_ to.” 

Kurt takes a deep breath, and, tense and blinking, nods. “That sounds...I’d like that,” he says, voice high but pleased behind his startled little smile. 

“So--can we...can we talk about this some more sometime? I mean--I don’t want to keep you here all day--” 

“I can’t stay here all day,” Kurt replies, suddenly flustered. “I’m already late to my first class--” 

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says. “But...can I...can we talk? Sometime?” 

Kurt settles and smiles a crooked, sweet little smile, and then he nods. 

“I think that might...be best. I’ll give you my phone number--” 

“Oh,” Blaine says. “Um. My phone’s...dead. I kind of...didn’t charge it yet. It died on the way back to the city--” 

“Then give me your number,” Kurt suggests, pulling out his phone and typing into it. “I’ll send you a text, and then you’ll have mine.” 

Blaine rattles off the number, and Kurt’s thumbs fly across the screen until he hits a final button, slipping the phone into his bag with a pleased look on his face and blush high on his cheeks. 

“Well, I will...talk to you later, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt says, rising, holding out his hand. Blaine stands and takes it, and they don’t even shake. They just stand there, eyes locked, hands clasped together. It feels like everything Blaine’s ever wanted--more than he ever felt before, even in his most intimate moments with the Kurt he knew last week. 

“I’ll talk to you later,” Blaine promises. And as Kurt walks away, he grins. 

He didn’t say goodbye. 

\-- 

When Blaine is home, Lane’s car returned and his own charger plugged into his phone on his nightstand, he sits and waits until the battery charges up enough to turn the phone back on. The load takes _forever_ , but Blaine just bounces through it. Forever might actually be on the other side. He can wait a little bit longer. 

His phone connects, and instantly a text comes in from a strange number. He adds it to his contacts as Kurt before he opens the text, jaw dropping as he reads what Kurt sent. 

_**Kurt:** I’m looking forward to discussing some of the finer memories we share, Mr. Anderson. I’m free tomorrow._

Blaine grins, and sends a message back. 

_Tomorrow it is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to unintentionallybadass and hollyhime for betaing what little parts they could of this story. And thank you for reading.


End file.
